Heightened Federal Pleading Standards and Environmental Long-tail and Toxic Tort Claims

I wrote an article with my colleague, Greg Gotwald, that was recently published in the American Bar Association's Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources' newsletter Trends.  The article provides an outline of how federal district courts have been handling environmental claims in light of Iqbal and Twombly's requirement that a plaintiff show plausible--not possible--entitlement to relief.  This can be hard to do when details of when and where the contamination originated may not be known at the time a complaint is filed.  The take-away of the article is that the more information a plaintiff can provide in a complaint, the better chance it has of defeating a 12(b)(6) motion. If defending an action, then Twombly and Iqbal provide justification for dismissing speculative claims.

Read more here.