9. Twombly and Iqbal provide a window into a profound disagreement among the Justices on the effectiveness of judicial case management, a topic that we will study in Chapter 11. The Twombly majority commented that “the success of judicial supervision in checking discovery abuse has been on the modest side,” citing a 1989 law review article on this point; the majority did not discuss the impact of amendments to the Federal Rules and the increased sophistication of case management techniques since that article appeared.

Justice Stevens’ dissent countered that “[t]he Court vastly underestimate[d] a district court’s case-management arsenal,” 550 U.S. at 595 n.13, 127 S.Ct. at 1988 n.13, 167 L.Ed.2d at 964 n.13, and a respected district court judge has sharply questioned this aspect of the majority’s decision. See McMahon, The Law of Unintended Consequences: Shockwaves in the LowerCourts After Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 41 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 851, 869–70 (2008).

How did this debate play out in Iqbal? Keep an open mind on these issues as we study such topics as sanctions, discovery case plans, case management, and summary judgment.