Opinion ID: 4438745
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: standards of review and pleading

Text: We review a district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim de novo. Vorchheimer v. Philadelphian Owners Ass’n, 903 F.3d 100, 105 (3d Cir. 2018). Our job is to gauge whether the complaint states a plausible claim to relief. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Plausible does not mean possible. If the allegations are “merely consistent with” misconduct, then they state no claim. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 557 (2007). There must be something in the complaint to suggest that the defendant’s alleged conduct is illegal. Id. at 557. But plausible does not mean probable either. Our job is not to dismiss claims that we think will fail in the end. See id. at 10 556. Instead, we ask only if we have “enough fact[s] to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of” each element. Id. This is the baseline pleading standard for all civil actions. Fed. R. Civ. P. 8; Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 684. But the relators allege claims for fraud. So they must also meet Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading requirement. United States ex rel. Moore & Co., P.A. v. Majestic Blue Fisheries, LLC, 812 F.3d 294, 306–07 (3d Cir. 2016). That rule says that a party alleging fraud “must state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b).