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New York Attorneys JHA handles range the gamut of complex financial and commercial litigation and arbitration, including securities, RICO, corporate and contract disputes, credit default swaps, derivatives, and class, mass, and derivative actions. The firm also represents law firms in major disputes.
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Twiqbal and Affirmative Defenses — Ninth Circuit Applies Fair-Notice Standard, Not Heightened Pleading Standard of Twombly and Iqbal, to Affirmative Defenses (Cases Are Split on the Issue)

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Castellano v. Access premier Realty, Inc., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158078 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 23, 2015):

An affirmative defense is an "assertion of facts and arguments that, if true, will defeat the plaintiff's [ ] claim, even if all the allegations in the complaint are true." Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). A court may strike a defectively pled affirmative defense under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f),1 which authorizes the removal of "an insufficient defense."

1   All subsequent references to "Rule" are to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

District courts in this circuit were previously split on whether the heightened pleading standard that the United States Supreme Court announced in Twombly and Iqbal2 applied to affirmative defenses. Some courts, including this Court, concluded that affirmative defenses were subject to the heightened pleading standard. See, e.g., Wine Group LLC, v. L. and R. Wine Co., No. 2:10-cv-02204-MCE-KJN, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5765, 2011 WL 130236, at *2 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 14, 2011); Dodson v. Strategic Rests. Acquisition Co. II, LLC, 289 F.R.D. 595 (E.D. Cal. 2013). Other courts, however, declined to apply the heightened pleading standard to affirmative defenses, citing Wyshak v. City National Bank, 607 F.2d 824, 826 (9th Cir. 1979), for the proposition that the pleadings need only provide the plaintiff "fair notice" [*4]  of the defense. See, e.g., Kohler v. Staples the Office Superstore, LLC, 291 F.R.D. 464, 468 (S.D. Cal. 2013).

2   See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929 (2007); Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 173 L. Ed. 2d 868 (2009).

The Ninth Circuit, however, has resolved the split in the district courts. In Kohler v. Flava Enterprises, Inc., the Ninth Circuit explained that "the 'fair notice' required by the pleading standards only require[s] describing [an affirmative] defense in 'general terms.'" 779 F.3d 1016, 1019 (9th Cir. 2015) (quoting 5 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 1274 (3d ed. 1998)).3 Accordingly, this Court now applies the "fair notice" standard, and not the heightened pleading standard announced in Twombly and Iqbal, when evaluating motions to strike affirmative defenses.

3   The specific sentence that the Ninth Circuit quoted in Kohler provides: "As numerous federal courts have held, an affirmative defense may be pleaded in general terms and will be held to be sufficient, and therefore invulnerable to a motion to strike, as long as it gives the plaintiff fair notice of the nature of the defense." Wright & Miller, § 1274 (footnotes omitted).

In the event the Court finds any affirmative defense to be invalid or improper, it must then decide whether amendment should be permitted to rectify its shortcomings. "[A] district court should grant leave to amend even if no request to amend the [*5]  pleading was made, unless it determines that the pleading could not possibly be cured by the allegation of other facts." Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1130 (9th Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a).

 

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New York Attorneys JHA handles range the gamut of complex financial and commercial litigation and arbitration, including securities, RICO, corporate and contract disputes, credit default swaps, derivatives, and class, mass, and derivative actions. The firm also represents law firms in major disputes.
New York Attorneys JHA handles range the gamut of complex financial and commercial litigation and arbitration, including securities, RICO, corporate and contract disputes, credit default swaps, derivatives, and class, mass, and derivative actions. The firm also represents law firms in major disputes.

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