Lee Sims, our very own Head of Reference, is quoted extensively in today's issue of the Connecticut Law Tribune for his prescience in recognizing the new pleading standard set forth last term by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ashcroft v. Iqbal.
Lee Sims sure had it nailed.
Part of his role as the University of Connecticut School of Law’s head reference librarian is to track trends in court decisions. He writes about such things in his “Librarian At Law” blog. Over the summer, he noted a case that, on the surface was about a civil rights lawsuit brought by a terrorist suspect. But language in the U.S. Supreme Court decision seemed to change the pleading standards for civil cases in federal court, making it easier for defendants to get lawsuits dismissed before discovery.
At the time, Sims blogged that Ashcroft v. Iqbal was the most important case of the past term for the high court. Now that prediction seems to be coming true. A quick search of Sims’ computer research banks shows that Iqbal has been invoked in 2,798 cases nationwide in the past six months, mostly in defense motions to dismiss and judges’ responses. Already, 111 law reviews and journals have weighed in.
Read the rest of the article here (subscription required - access available on all UConn Law computers).
Follow Lee on this blog, and at his personal blog at Librarian at Law. Read his previous posts on the Iqbal decision here, here, and here.
