The Rise of the Common Law of Federal Pleading: Iqbal, Twombly, and the Application of Judicial Experience

SINCE 1938, Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Federal Rules or Rules) has set the standard for how much a plaintiff must allege at the outset of a lawsuit in order to avoid dismissal for failure to state a claim. Rule 8 requires that a plaintiff must include in the complaint a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief. Federal courts developed a well-settled set of principles to apply when deciding whether to dismiss a claim. Among these principles are the following: (1) the plaintiffs factual allegations are accepted as true;(2) the court must construe the complaint liberally (in favor of the plaintiff) and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff;(3) the court may not consider matters or information beyond what is stated on the face of the complaint, judicially noticed facts, and any attachments to the complaint;(4) the complaint must provide notice to the defendant of the plaintiffs claims and the grounds on which they rest;and (5) the court should not dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that it is impossible for the plaintiff to prove some set of facts in support of his or her claim which would entitle him or her to relief. These principles can be summarized as: the court must accept the vision of the world described in the plaintiffs complaint and it must view the events that transpired in that world as the plaintiff would view them. This concept is consistent with the adversarial litigation process we have adopted in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Villanova Law Review is the property of Villanova University School of Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder\u27s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.

The Rise of the Common Law of Federal Pleading: Iqbal, Twombly, and the Application of Judicial Experience

SINCE 1938, Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Federal Rules or Rules) has set the standard for how much a plaintiff must allege at the outset of a lawsuit in order to avoid dismissal for failure to state a claim. Rule 8 requires that a plaintiff must include in the complaint a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief. Federal courts developed a well-settled set of principles to apply when deciding whether to dismiss a claim. Among these principles are the following: (1) the plaintiffs factual allegations are accepted as true;(2) the court must construe the complaint liberally (in favor of the plaintiff) and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff;(3) the court may not consider matters or information beyond what is stated on the face of the complaint, judicially noticed facts, and any attachments to the complaint;(4) the complaint must provide notice to the defendant of the plaintiffs claims and the grounds on which they rest;and (5) the court should not dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that it is impossible for the plaintiff to prove some set of facts in support of his or her claim which would entitle him or her to relief. These principles can be summarized as: the court must accept the vision of the world described in the plaintiffs complaint and it must view the events that transpired in that world as the plaintiff would view them. This concept is consistent with the adversarial litigation process we have adopted in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Villanova Law Review is the property of Villanova University School of Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder\u27s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.

A Civil Method of Law Enforcement on the Reservation: In Rem Forfeiture and Indian Law

Two of the greatest sustainable resources currently available to American Indian tribes in their struggle to gain economic independence are tourism and gambling. Both resources require tribes to admit large numbers of non-Indians onto their reservations. This article proposes and assesses in rem forfeiture as a viable method of law enforcement for American Indian tribes. It considers the scope and limits of tribal sovereignty and the civil/criminal jurisdictional dichotomy established by Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe and Montana v. United States. The article concludes that enacting and enforcing in rem forfeiture provisions would broaden the limited array of law enforcement tools available to tribes to deal with Non-Indians who visit their reservations

Rotation periods of exoplanet host stars

The stellar rotation periods of ten exoplanet host stars have been determined using newly analysed Ca II H & K flux records from Mount Wilson Observatory and Stromgren b, y photometric measurements from Tennessee State University's automatic photometric telescopes (APTs) at Fairborn Observatory. Five of the rotation periods have not previously been reported, with that of HD 130322 very strongly detected at Prot = 26.1 \pm 3.5 d. The rotation periods of five other stars have been updated using new data. We use the rotation periods to derive the line-of-sight inclinations of the stellar rotation axes, which may be used to probe theories of planet formation and evolution when combined with the planetary orbital inclination found from other methods. Finally, we estimate the masses of fourteen exoplanets under the assumption that the stellar rotation axis is aligned with the orbital axis. We calculate the mass of HD 92788 b (28 MJ) to be within the low-mass brown dwarf regime and suggest that this object warrants further investigation to confirm its true nature.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 15 pages, 11 figure

Asteroseismology of the planet-hosting star mu Arae. II. Seismic analysis

As most exoplanets host stars, HD 160691 (alias mu Ara) presents a metallicity excess in its spectrum compared to stars without detected planets. This excess may be primordial, in which case the star would be completely overmetallic, or it may be due to accretion in the early phases of planetary formation, in which case it would be overmetallic only in its outer layers. As discussed in a previous paper (Bazot and Vauclair 2004), seismology can help choosing between the two scenarios. This star was observed during eight nights with the spectrograph HARPS at La Silla Observatory. Forty three p-modes have been identified (Bouchy et al. 2005). In the present paper, we discuss the modelisation of this star. We computed stellar models iterated to present the same observable parameters (luminosity, effective temperature, outer chemical composition) while the internal structure was different according to the two extreme assumptions : original overmetallicity or accretion. We show that in any case the seismic constraints lead to models in complete agreement with the external parameters deduced from spectroscopy and from the Hipparcos parallax (L and Teff). We discuss the tests which may lead to a choice between the two typical scenarios. We show that the ``small separation'' seem to give a better fit for the accretion case than for the overmetallic case, but in spite of the very good data the uncertainties are still too large to conclude. We discuss the observations which would be needed to go further and solve this question.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, accepted in A&

The CORALIE survey for southern extra-solar planets. X. A Hot Jupiter orbiting HD73256

Recent radial-velocity measurements obtained with the CORALIE spectrograph on the 1.2-m Euler Swiss telescope at La Silla unveil the presence of a new Jovian-mass Hot Jupiter around HD 73256. The 1.85-M_Jup planet moves on an extremely short-period (P=2.5486 d), quasi-circular orbit. The best Keplerian orbital solution is presented together with an unsuccessful photometric planetary-transit search performed with the SAT Danish telescope at La Silla. Over the time span of the observations, the photometric follow-up of the candidate has nevertheless revealed a P=14-d photometric periodicity corresponding to the rotational period of the star. This variation as well as the radial-velocity jitter around the Keplerian solution are shown to be related to the fair activity level known for HD 73256.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Accepted in A&

The CORALIE survey for southern extra-solar planets VIII. The very low-mass companions of HD141937, HD162020, HD168443, HD202206: brown dwarfs or superplanets?

Doppler CORALIE measurements of the solar-type stars HD141937, HD162020, HD168443 and HD202206 show Keplerian radial-velocity variations revealing the presence of 4 new companions with minimum masses close to the planet/brown-dwarf transition, namely with m_2sin(i) = 9.7, 14.4, 16.9, and 17.5 M_Jup, respectively. The orbits present fairly large eccentricities (0.22<e<0.43). Except for HD162020, the parent stars are metal rich compared to the Sun, as are most of the detected extra-solar planet hosts. Considerations of tidal dissipation in the short-period HD162020 system points towards a brown-dwarf nature for the low-mass companion. HD168443 is a multiple system with two low-mass companions being either brown dwarfs or formed simultaneously in the protoplanetary disks as superplanets. For HD202206, the radial velocities show an additional drift revealing a further outer companion, the nature of which is still unknown. Finally, the stellar-host and orbital properties of massive planets are examined in comparison to lighter exoplanets. Observed trends include the need of metal-rich stars to form massive exoplanets and the lack of short periods for massive planets. If confirmed with improved statistics, these features may provide constraints for the migration scenario.Comment: 14 pages including figures, accepted for publication in A&