Kenneth Klein on Pleading, Iqbal, and the 7th Amendment

Kenneth Klein (Cal Western) has posted on SSRN his article, Ashcroft V. Iqbal Crashes Rule 8 Pleading Standards on to Unconstitutional Shores.  Here's the abstract:

Over the course of the last two centuries, the realities of modern civil litigation and the traditional interpretation of the Seventh Amendment have been on a collision course. The recent Supreme Court Opinion in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, heightening the pleading standards under Rule 8, is the point of impact. The thesis of this Article is that while the Iqbal Opinion fails even to acknowledge a potential conflict with the Seventh Amendment, the decision interprets Rule 8 in a manner that is unconstitutional when measured against the traditional interpretation of the Seventh Amendment.

BGS