OPINION OF THE COURT ASHCROFT V. IQBAL 556 U. S. ____ (2009) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 07-1015 JOHN D. ASHCROFT, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL,
et al., PETITIONERS v. JAVAID IQBAL et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the second circuit

															[May 18, 2009]

															   Justice Kennedy delivered the
opinion of the Court.

															   Respondent Javaid Iqbal is a
citizen of Pakistan and a Muslim. In the wake of the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks he was arrested in the United States on
criminal charges and detained by federal officials. Respondent
claims he was deprived of various constitutional protections while
in federal custody. To redress the alleged deprivations, respondent
filed a complaint against numerous federal officials, including
John Ashcroft, the former Attorney General of the United States,
and Robert Mueller, the Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI). Ashcroft and Mueller are the petitioners in
the case now before us. As to these two petitioners, the complaint
alleges that they adopted an unconstitutional policy that subjected
respondent to harsh conditions of confinement on account of his
race, religion, or national origin.

															   In the District Court petitioners raised the
defense of qualified immunity and moved to dismiss the suit,
contending the complaint was not sufficient to state a claim
against them. The District Court denied the motion to dismiss,
concluding the complaint was sufficient to state a claim despite
petitioners’ official status at the times in question. Petitioners
brought an interlocutory appeal in the Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit. The court, without discussion, assumed it had
jurisdiction over the order denying the motion to dismiss; and it
affirmed the District Court’s decision.

															   Respondent’s account of his prison ordeal
could, if proved, demonstrate unconstitutional misconduct by some
governmental actors. But the allegations and pleadings with respect
to these actors are not before us here. This case instead turns on
a narrower question: Did respondent, as the plaintiff in the
District Court, plead factual matter that, if taken as true, states
a claim that petitioners deprived him of his clearly established
constitutional rights. We hold respondent’s pleadings are
insufficient.

															I

															   Following the 2001 attacks, the
FBI and other entities within the Department of Justice began an
investigation of vast reach to identify the assailants and prevent
them from attacking anew. The FBI dedicated more than 4,000 special
agents and 3,000 support personnel to the endeavor. By September 18
“the FBI had received more than 96,000 tips or potential leads from
the public.” Dept. of Justice, Office of Inspector General, The
September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on
Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the
September 11 Attacks 1, 11–12 (Apr. 2003) (hereinafter OIG Report),
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/
0306/full.pdf?bcsi_scan_61073EC0F74759AD=0&bcsi_scan_filename=full.pdf
(as visited May 14, 2009, and available in Clerk of Court’s case
file).

															   In the ensuing months the FBI
questioned more than 1,000 people with suspected links to the
attacks in particular or to terrorism in general. Id. , at
1. Of those individuals, some 762 were held on immigration charges;
and a 184-member subset of that group was deemed to be “of ‘high
interest’ ” to the investigation. Id., at 111. The
high-interest detainees were held under restrictive conditions
designed to prevent them from communicating with the general prison
population or the outside world. Id., at 112–113.

															   Respondent was one of the detainees. According
to his complaint, in November 2001 agents of the FBI and
Immigration and Naturalization Service arrested him on charges of
fraud in relation to identification documents and conspiracy to
defraud the United States. Iqbal v. Hasty, 490
F. 3d 143, 147–148 (CA2 2007). Pending trial for those crimes,
respondent was housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in
Brooklyn, New York. Respondent was designated a person “of high
interest” to the September 11 investigation and in January 2002 was
placed in a section of the MDC known as the Administrative Maximum
Special Housing Unit (ADMAX SHU). Id., at 148. As the
facility’s name indicates, the ADMAX SHU incorporates the maximum
security conditions allowable under Federal Bureau of Prison
regulations. Ibid. ADMAX SHU detainees were kept in
lockdown 23 hours a day, spending the remaining hour outside their
cells in handcuffs and leg irons accompanied by a four-officer
escort. Ibid. Respondent pleaded guilty to the criminal
charges, served a term of imprisonment, and was removed to his
native Pakistan. Id., at 149. He then filed a Bivens action in the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of New York against 34 current and former federal
officials and 19 “John Doe” federal corrections officers. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents , 403 U. S. 388 (1971). The defendants range from the correctional officers who had
day-to-day contact with respondent during the term of his
confinement, to the wardens of the MDC facility, all the way to
petitioners—officials who were at the highest level of the federal
law enforcement hierarchy. First Amended Complaint in No.
04–CV–1809 (JG)(JA), ¶¶1011, App. to Pet. for Cert. 157a
(hereinafter Complaint).

															   The 21-cause-of-action complaint does not
challenge respondent’s arrest or his confinement in the MDC’s
general prison population. Rather, it concentrates on his treatment
while confined to the ADMAX SHU. The complaint sets forth various
claims against defendants who are not before us. For instance, the
complaint alleges that respondent’s jailors “kicked him in the
stomach, punched him in the face, and dragged him across” his cell
without justification, id., ¶113, App. to Pet. for Cert.
176a; subjected him to serial strip and body-cavity searches when
he posed no safety risk to himself or others, id., ¶¶143–145, App. to Pet. for Cert. 182a; and refused to let him and
other Muslims pray because there would be “[n]o prayers for
terrorists,” id., ¶154, App. to Pet. for Cert. 184a.

															   The allegations against petitioners are the
only ones relevant here. The complaint contends that petitioners
designated respondent a person of high interest on account of his
race, religion, or national origin, in contravention of the First
and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. The complaint alleges
that “the [FBI], under the direction of Defendant MUELLER, arrested
and detained thousands of Arab Muslim men … as part of its
investigation of the events of September 11.” Id., ¶47, at
164a. It further alleges that “[t]he policy of holding
post-September-11th detainees in highly restrictive conditions of
confinement until they were ‘cleared’ by the FBI was approved by
Defendants ASHCROFT and MUELLER in discussions in the weeks after
September 11, 2001.” Id., ¶69, at 168a. Lastly, the
complaint posits that petitioners “each knew of, condoned, and
willfully and maliciously agreed to subject” respondent to harsh
conditions of confinement “as a matter of policy, solely on account
of [his] religion, race, and/or national origin and for no
legitimate penological interest.” Id., ¶96, at 172a–173a.
The pleading names Ashcroft as the “principal architect” of the
policy, id., ¶10, at 157a, and identifies Mueller as
“instrumental in [its] adoption, promulgation, and implementation.” Id., ¶11, at 157a.

															   Petitioners moved to dismiss the complaint for
failure to state sufficient allegations to show their own
involvement in clearly established unconstitutional conduct. The
District Court denied their motion. Accepting all of the
allegations in respondent’s complaint as true, the court held that
“it cannot be said that there [is] no set of facts on which
[respondent] would be entitled to relief as against” petitioners. Id., at 136a–137a (relying on Conley v. Gibson , 355
U. S. 41 (1957)). Invoking the collateral-order doctrine
petitioners filed an interlocutory appeal in the United States
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. While that appeal was
pending, this Court decided Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U. S. 544 (2007), which discussed
the standard for evaluating whether a complaint is sufficient to
survive a motion to dismiss.

															   The Court of Appeals considered Twombly’ s applicability to this case. Acknowledging that Twombly retired the Conley no-set-of-facts test
relied upon by the District Court, the Court of Appeals’ opinion
discussed at length how to apply this Court’s “standard for
assessing the adequacy of pleadings.” 490 F. 3d, at 155. It
concluded that Twombly called for a “flexible
‘plausibility standard,’ which obliges a pleader to amplify a claim
with some factual allegations in those contexts where such
amplification is needed to render the claim plausible. ” Id., at 157–158. The court found that petitioners’ appeal
did not present one of “those contexts” requiring amplification. As
a consequence, it held respondent’s pleading adequate to allege
petitioners’ personal involvement in discriminatory decisions
which, if true, violated clearly established constitutional law. Id., at 174.

															   Judge Cabranes concurred. He agreed that the
majority’s “discussion of the relevant pleading standards
reflect[ed] the uneasy compromise … between a qualified immunity
privilege rooted in the need to preserve the effectiveness of
government as contemplated by our constitutional structure and the
pleading requirements of Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure.” Id., at 178 (internal quotation marks and
citations omitted). Judge Cabranes nonetheless expressed concern at
the prospect of subjecting high-ranking Government
officials—entitled to assert the defense of qualified immunity and
charged with responding to “a national and international security
emergency unprecedented in the history of the American Republic”—to
the burdens of discovery on the basis of a complaint as nonspecific
as respondent’s. Id., at 179. Reluctant to vindicate that
concern as a member of the Court of Appeals, ibid., Judge
Cabranes urged this Court to address the appropriate pleading
standard “at the earliest opportunity.” Id., at 178. We
granted certiorari, 554 U. S. ___ (2008), and now reverse.

															II

															   We first address whether the
Court of Appeals had subject-matter jurisdiction to affirm the
District Court’s order denying petitioners’ motion to dismiss.
Respondent disputed subject-matter jurisdiction in the Court of
Appeals, but the court hardly discussed the issue. We are not free
to pretermit the question. Subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be
forfeited or waived and should be considered when fairly in doubt. Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp. , 546 U. S. 500 , 514
(2006) (citing United States v. Cotton , 535 U. S. 625 , 630
(2002)). According to respondent, the District Court’s order
denying petitioners’ motion to dismiss is not appealable under the
collateral-order doctrine. We disagree.

															A

															   With exceptions inapplicable
here, Congress has vested the courts of appeals with “jurisdiction
of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts of the
United States.” 28 U. S. C. §1291. Though the statute’s
finality requirement ensures that “interlocutory appeals—appeals
before the end of district court proceedings—are the exception, not
the rule,” Johnson v. Jones , 515 U. S. 304 , 309 (1995), it does not
prevent “review of all prejudgment orders.” Behrens v. Pelletier , 516 U. S. 299 , 305
(1996). Under the collateral-order doctrine a limited set of
district-court orders are reviewable “though short of final
judgment.” Ibid. The orders within this narrow category
“are immediately appealable because they ‘finally determine claims
of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the
action, too important to be denied review and too independent of
the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be
deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial
Loan Corp., 337
U. S. 541 , 546 (1949)).

															   A district-court decision denying
a Government officer’s claim of qualified immunity can fall within
the narrow class of appealable orders despite “the absence of a
final judgment.” Mitchell v. Forsyth , 472 U. S. 511 , 530
(1985). This is so because qualified immunity—which shields
Government officials “from liability for civil damages insofar as
their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or
constitutional rights,” Harlow v. Fitzgerald , 457 U. S. 800 ,
818 (1982)—is both a defense to liability and a limited
“entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of
litigation.” Mitchell , supra , 472 U. S., at 526.
Provided it “turns on an issue of law,” id. , at 530, a
district-court order denying qualified immunity
“ ‘conclusively determine[s]’ ” that the defendant must
bear the burdens of discovery; is “conceptually distinct from the
merits of the plaintiff’s claim”; and would prove “effectively
unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” Id. , at
527528 (citing Cohen, supra, at 546). As a general matter,
the collateral-order doctrine may have expanded beyond the limits
dictated by its internal logic and the strict application of the
criteria set out in Cohen . But the applicability of the
doctrine in the context of qualified-immunity claims is well
established; and this Court has been careful to say that a district
court’s order rejecting qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss
stage of a proceeding is a “final decision” within the meaning of
§1291. Behrens, 516 U. S., at 307 . B Applying these principles, we
conclude that the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to hear
petitioners’ appeal. The District Court’s order denying
petitioners’ motion to dismiss turned on an issue of law and
rejected the defense of qualified immunity. It was therefore a
final decision “subject to immediate appeal.” Ibid . Respondent
says that “a qualified immunity appeal based solely on the
complaint’s failure to state a claim, and not on the ultimate
issues relevant to the qualified immunity defense itself, is not a
proper subject of interlocutory jurisdiction.” Brief for Respondent
Iqbal 15 (hereinafter Iqbal Brief). In other words, respondent
contends the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to determine whether
his complaint avers a clearly established constitutional violation
but that it lacked jurisdiction to pass on the sufficiency of his
pleadings. Our opinions, however, make clear that appellate
jurisdiction is not so strictly confined.

															      In Hartman v. Moore , 547 U. S. 250 (2006),
the Court reviewed an interlocutory decision denying qualified
immunity. The legal issue decided in Hartman concerned the
elements a plaintiff “must plead and prove in order to win” a First
Amendment retaliation claim. Id., at 257, n. 5.
Similarly, two Terms ago in Wilkie v. Robbins , 551 U. S. 537 (2007), the Court considered another interlocutory order denying
qualified immunity. The legal issue there was whether a Bivens action can be employed to challenge interference
with property rights. 551 U. S., at 549, n. 4. These cases
cannot be squared with respondent’s argument that the
collateral-order doctrine restricts appellate jurisdiction to the
“ultimate issu[e]” whether the legal wrong asserted was a violation
of clearly established law while excluding the question whether the
facts pleaded establish such a violation. Iqbal Brief 15. Indeed,
the latter question is even more clearly within the category of
appealable decisions than the questions presented in Hartman and Wilkie , since whether a particular
complaint sufficiently alleges a clearly established violation of
law cannot be decided in isolation from the facts pleaded. In that
sense the sufficiency of respondent’s pleadings is both
“inextricably intertwined with,” Swint v. Chambers
County Comm’n , 514 U. S. 35 , 51 (1995),
and “directly implicated by,” Hartman, supra , at 257,
n. 5, the qualified immunity defense.

															   Respondent counters that our holding in Johnson , 515 U. S. 304 , confirms the want of
subject-matter jurisdiction here. That is incorrect. The allegation
in Johnson was that five defendants, all of them police
officers, unlawfully beat the plaintiff. Johnson considered “the appealability of a portion of” the District Court’s
summary judgment order that, “though entered in a ‘qualified
immunity’ case, determine[d] only” that there was a genuine issue
of material fact that three of the defendants participated in the
beating. Id., at 313.

															   In finding that order not a “final decision”
for purposes of §1291, the Johnson Court cited Mitchell for the proposition that only decisions turning
“ ‘ on an issue of law ’ ” are subject to
immediate appeal. 515 U. S., at 313 . Though determining
whether there is a genuine issue of material fact at summary
judgment is a question of law, it is a legal question that sits
near the law-fact divide. Or as we said in Johnson , it is
a “fact-related” legal inquiry. Id., at 314. To conduct
it, a court of appeals may be required to consult a “vast pretrial
record, with numerous conflicting affidavits, depositions, and
other discovery materials.” Id., at 316. That process
generally involves matters more within a district court’s ken and
may replicate inefficiently questions that will arise on appeal
following final judgment. Ibid. Finding those concerns
predominant, Johnson held that the collateral orders that
are “final” under Mitchell turn on “abstract,” rather than
“fact-based,” issues of law. 515 U. S., at 317.

															   The concerns that animated the decision in Johnson are absent when an appellate court considers the
disposition of a motion to dismiss a complaint for insufficient
pleadings. True, the categories of “fact-based” and “abstract”
legal questions used to guide the Court’s decision in Johnson are not well defined. Here, however, the order
denying petitioners’ motion to dismiss falls well within the latter
class. Reviewing that order, the Court of Appeals considered only
the allegations contained within the four corners of respondent’s
complaint; resort to a “vast pretrial record” on petitioners’
motion to dismiss was unnecessary. Id., at 316. And
determining whether respondent’s complaint has the “heft” to state
a claim is a task well within an appellate court’s core competency. Twombly, 550 U. S., at 557. Evaluating the sufficiency of
a complaint is not a “fact-based” question of law, so the problem
the Court sought to avoid in Johnson is not implicated
here. The District Court’s order denying petitioners’ motion to
dismiss is a final decision under the collateral-order doctrine
over which the Court of Appeals had, and this Court has,
jurisdiction. We proceed to consider the merits of petitioners’
appeal.

															III

															   In Twombly, supra, at
553–554, the Court found it necessary first to discuss the
antitrust principles implicated by the complaint. Here too we begin
by taking note of the elements a plaintiff must plead to state a
claim of unconstitutional discrimination against officials entitled
to assert the defense of qualified immunity.

															   In Bivens —proceeding on
the theory that a right suggests a remedy—this Court “recognized
for the first time an implied private action for damages against
federal officers alleged to have violated a citizen’s
constitutional rights.” Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko , 534
U. S. 61 , 66 (2001). Because implied causes of action are
disfavored, the Court has been reluctant to extend Bivens liability “to any new context or new category of defendants.” 534
U. S., at 68. See also Wilkie , 551 U. S., at
549 –550. That reluctance might well have disposed of
respondent’s First Amendment claim of religious discrimination. For
while we have allowed a Bivens action to redress a
violation of the equal protection component of the Due Process
Clause of the Fifth Amendment, see Davis v. Passman , 442 U. S. 228 (1979), we
have not found an implied damages remedy under the Free Exercise
Clause. Indeed, we have declined to extend Bivens to a
claim sounding in the First Amendment. Bush v. Lucas , 462
U. S. 367 (1983). Petitioners do not press this argument,
however, so we assume, without deciding, that respondent’s First
Amendment claim is actionable under Bivens .

															   In the limited settings where Bivens does apply, the implied cause of action is the “federal analog to
suits brought against state officials under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U.
S. C. §1983.” Hartman , 547 U. S., at 254, n. 2.
Cf. Wilson v. Layne , 526 U. S. 603 , 609
(1999). Based on the rules our precedents establish, respondent
correctly concedes that Government officials may not be held liable
for the unconstitutional conduct of their subordinates under a
theory of respondeat superior. Iqbal Brief 46 (“[I]t is
undisputed that supervisory Bivens liability cannot be
established solely on a theory of respondeat superior ”).
See Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social
Servs. , 436 U.
S. 658 , 691 (1978) (finding no vicarious liability for a
municipal “person” under 42 U. S. C. §1983); see also Dunlop v. Munroe , 7 Cranch 242, 269 (1812) (a
federal official’s liability “will only result from his own neglect
in not properly superintending the discharge” of his subordinates’
duties); Robertson v. Sichel , 127 U. S. 507 , 515–516
(1888) (“A public officer or agent is not responsible for the
misfeasances or position wrongs, or for the nonfeasances, or
negligences, or omissions of duty, of the subagents or servants or
other persons properly employed by or under him, in the discharge
of his official duties”). Because vicarious liability is
inapplicable to Bivens and §1983 suits, a plaintiff must
plead that each Government-official defendant, through the
official’s own individual actions, has violated the
Constitution.

															   The factors necessary to establish a Bivens violation will vary with the constitutional
provision at issue. Where the claim is invidious discrimination in
contravention of the First and Fifth Amendments, our decisions make
clear that the plaintiff must plead and prove that the defendant
acted with discriminatory purpose. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye,
Inc. v. Hialeah , 508 U. S. 520 , 540–541
(1993) (First Amendment); Washington v. Davis , 426 U. S. 229 ,
240 (1976) (Fifth Amendment). Under extant precedent purposeful
discrimination requires more than “intent as volition or intent as
awareness of consequences.” Personnel Administrator of
Mass. v. Feeney , 442 U. S. 256 , 279
(1979). It instead involves a decisionmaker’s undertaking a course
of action “ ‘because of,’ not merely ‘in spite of,’ [the
action’s] adverse effects upon an identifiable group.” Ibid. It follows that, to state a claim based on a
violation of a clearly established right, respondent must plead
sufficient factual matter to show that petitioners adopted and
implemented the detention policies at issue not for a neutral,
investigative reason but for the purpose of discriminating on
account of race, religion, or national origin.

															   Respondent disagrees. He argues that, under a
theory of “supervisory liability,” petitioners can be liable for
“knowledge and acquiescence in their subordinates’ use of
discriminatory criteria to make classification decisions among
detainees.” Iqbal Brief 45–46. That is to say, respondent believes
a supervisor’s mere knowledge of his subordinate’s discriminatory
purpose amounts to the supervisor’s violating the Constitution. We
reject this argument. Respondent’s conception of “supervisory
liability” is inconsistent with his accurate stipulation that
petitioners may not be held accountable for the misdeeds of their
agents. In a §1983 suit or a Bivens action—where masters
do not answer for the torts of their servants—the term “supervisory
liability” is a misnomer. Absent vicarious liability, each
Government official, his or her title notwithstanding, is only
liable for his or her own misconduct. In the context of determining
whether there is a violation of clearly established right to
overcome qualified immunity, purpose rather than knowledge is
required to impose Bivens liability on the subordinate for
unconstitutional discrimination; the same holds true for an
official charged with violations arising from his or her
superintendent responsibilities.

															IV

															A

															   We turn to respondent’s
complaint. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), a
pleading must contain a “short and plain statement of the claim
showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” As the Court held
in Twombly, 550 U. S. 544 , the pleading standard
Rule 8 announces does not require “detailed factual allegations,”
but it demands more than an unadorned,
the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation. Id ., at 555
(citing Papasan v. Allain, 478 U. S. 265 , 286
(1986)). A pleading that offers “labels and conclusions” or “a
formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not
do.” 550 U. S., at 555. Nor does a complaint suffice if it tenders
“naked assertion[s]” devoid of “further factual enhancement.” Id. , at 557.

															   To survive a motion to dismiss, a
complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true,
to “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. , at 570. A claim has facial plausibility when the
plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the
reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the
misconduct alleged. Id., at 556. The plausibility standard
is not akin to a “probability requirement,” but it asks for more
than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully. Ibid . Where a complaint pleads facts that are “merely
consistent with” a defendant’s liability, it “stops short of the
line between possibility and plausibility of ‘entitlement to
relief.’ ” Id. , at 557 (brackets omitted).

															   Two working principles underlie our decision
in Twombly. First, the tenet that a court must accept as
true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is
inapplicable to legal conclusions. Threadbare recitals of the
elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory
statements, do not suffice. Id., at 555 (Although for the
purposes of a motion to dismiss we must take all of the factual
allegations in the complaint as true, we “are not bound to accept
as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation”
(internal quotation marks omitted)). Rule 8 marks a notable and
generous departure from the hyper-technical, code-pleading regime
of a prior era, but it does not unlock the doors of discovery for a
plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions. Second, only a
complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a
motion to dismiss. Id., at 556. Determining whether a
complaint states a plausible claim for relief will, as the Court of
Appeals observed, be a context-specific task that requires the
reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common
sense. 490 F. 3d, at 157–158. But where the well-pleaded facts
do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of
misconduct, the complaint has alleged—but it has not
“show[n]”—“that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. Rule Civ.
Proc. 8(a)(2).

															   In keeping with these principles a court
considering a motion to dismiss can choose to begin by identifying
pleadings that, because they are no more than conclusions, are not
entitled to the assumption of truth. While legal conclusions can
provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by
factual allegations. When there are well-pleaded factual
allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then
determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to
relief.

															   Our decision in Twombly illustrates
the two-pronged approach. There, we considered the sufficiency of a
complaint alleging that incumbent telecommunications providers had
entered an agreement not to compete and to forestall competitive
entry, in violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. §1.
Recognizing that §1 enjoins only anticompetitive conduct “effected
by a contract, combination, or conspiracy,” Copperweld
Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp. , 467 U. S. 752 , 775
(1984), the plaintiffs in Twombly flatly pleaded that the
defendants “ha[d] entered into a contract, combination or
conspiracy to prevent competitive entry … and ha[d] agreed not to
compete with one another.” 550 U. S., at 551 (internal quotation
marks omitted). The complaint also alleged that the defendants’
“parallel course of conduct … to prevent competition” and inflate
prices was indicative of the unlawful agreement alleged. Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).

															   The Court held the plaintiffs’ complaint
deficient under Rule 8. In doing so it first noted that the
plaintiffs’ assertion of an unlawful agreement was a “ ‘legal
conclusion’ ” and, as such, was not entitled to the assumption
of truth. Id., at 555. Had the Court simply credited the
allegation of a conspiracy, the plaintiffs would have stated a
claim for relief and been entitled to proceed perforce. The Court
next addressed the “nub” of the plaintiffs’ complaint—the
well-pleaded, nonconclusory factual allegation of parallel
behavior—to determine whether it gave rise to a “plausible
suggestion of conspiracy.” Id., at 565–566. Acknowledging
that parallel conduct was consistent with an unlawful agreement,
the Court nevertheless concluded that it did not plausibly suggest
an illicit accord because it was not only compatible with, but
indeed was more likely explained by, lawful, unchoreographed
free-market behavior. Id. , at 567. Because the
well-pleaded fact of parallel conduct, accepted as true, did not
plausibly suggest an unlawful agreement, the Court held the
plaintiffs’ complaint must be dismissed. Id. , at 570.

															B

															   Under Twombly ’s
construction of Rule 8, we conclude that respondent’s complaint has
not “nudged [his] claims” of invidious discrimination “across the
line from conceivable to plausible.” Ibid. We begin our analysis by
identifying the allegations in the complaint that are not entitled
to the assumption of truth. Respondent pleads that petitioners
“knew of, condoned, and willfully and maliciously agreed to subject
[him]” to harsh conditions of confinement “as a matter of policy,
solely on account of [his] religion, race, and/or national origin
and for no legitimate penological interest.” Complaint ¶96, App. to
Pet. for Cert. 173a–174a. The complaint alleges that Ashcroft was
the “principal architect” of this invidious policy, id., ¶10,
at 157a, and that Mueller was “instrumental” in adopting and
executing it, id. , ¶11, at 157a. These bare assertions,
much like the pleading of conspiracy in Twombly , amount to
nothing more than a “formulaic recitation of the elements” of a
constitutional discrimination claim, 550 U. S., at 555, namely,
that petitioners adopted a policy “ ‘because of,’ not merely
‘in spite of,’ its adverse effects upon an identifiable group.” Feeney , 442 U. S., at 279. As such, the allegations are
conclusory and not entitled to be assumed true. Twombly , supra, 550 U. S., at 554–555. To be clear, we do not
reject these bald allegations on the ground that they are
unrealistic or nonsensical. We do not so characterize them any more
than the Court in Twombly rejected the plaintiffs’ express
allegation of a “ ‘contract, combination or conspiracy to
prevent competitive entry,’ ” id. , at 551, because it
thought that claim too chimerical to be maintained. It is the
conclusory nature of respondent’s allegations, rather than their
extravagantly fanciful nature, that disentitles them to the
presumption of truth.

															   We next consider the factual allegations in
respondent’s complaint to determine if they plausibly suggest an
entitlement to relief. The complaint alleges that “the [FBI], under
the direction of Defendant MUELLER, arrested and detained thousands
of Arab Muslim men … as part of its investigation of the events of
September 11.” Complaint ¶47, App. to Pet. for Cert. 164a. It
further claims that “[t]he policy of holding post-September-11th
detainees in highly restrictive conditions of confinement until
they were ‘cleared’ by the FBI was approved by Defendants ASHCROFT
and MUELLER in discussions in the weeks after September 11, 2001.” Id., ¶69, at 168a. Taken as true, these allegations are
consistent with petitioners’ purposefully designating detainees “of
high interest” because of their race, religion, or national origin.
But given more likely explanations, they do not plausibly establish
this purpose.

															   The September 11 attacks were perpetrated by
19 Arab Muslim hijackers who counted themselves members in good
standing of al Qaeda, an Islamic fundamentalist group. Al Qaeda was
headed by another Arab Muslim—Osama bin Laden—and composed in large
part of his Arab Muslim disciples. It should come as no surprise
that a legitimate policy directing law enforcement to arrest and
detain individuals because of their suspected link to the attacks
would produce a disparate, incidental impact on Arab Muslims, even
though the purpose of the policy was to target neither Arabs nor
Muslims. On the facts respondent alleges the arrests Mueller
oversaw were likely lawful and justified by his nondiscriminatory
intent to detain aliens who were illegally present in the United
States and who had potential connections to those who committed
terrorist acts. As between that “obvious alternative explanation”
for the arrests, Twombly, supra, at 567, and the
purposeful, invidious discrimination respondent asks us to infer,
discrimination is not a plausible conclusion.

															   But even if the complaint’s well-pleaded facts
give rise to a plausible inference that respondent’s arrest was the
result of unconstitutional discrimination, that inference alone
would not entitle respondent to relief. It is important to recall
that respondent’s complaint challenges neither the
constitutionality of his arrest nor his initial detention in the
MDC. Respondent’s constitutional claims against petitioners rest
solely on their ostensible “policy of holding post-September-11th
detainees” in the ADMAX SHU once they were categorized as “of high
interest.” Complaint ¶69, App. to Pet. for Cert. 168a. To prevail
on that theory, the complaint must contain facts plausibly showing
that petitioners purposefully adopted a policy of classifying
post-September-11 detainees as “of high interest” because of their
race, religion, or national origin.

															   This the complaint fails to do. Though
respondent alleges that various other defendants, who are not
before us, may have labeled him a person of “of high interest” for
impermissible reasons, his only factual allegation against
petitioners accuses them of adopting a policy approving
“restrictive conditions of confinement” for post-September-11
detainees until they were “ ‘cleared’ by the FBI.” Ibid. Accepting the truth of that allegation, the
complaint does not show, or even intimate, that petitioners
purposefully housed detainees in the ADMAX SHU due to their race,
religion, or national origin. All it plausibly suggests is that the
Nation’s top law enforcement officers, in the aftermath of a
devastating terrorist attack, sought to keep suspected terrorists
in the most secure conditions available until the suspects could be
cleared of terrorist activity. Respondent does not argue, nor can
he, that such a motive would violate petitioners’ constitutional
obligations. He would need to allege more by way of factual content
to “nudg[e]” his claim of purposeful discrimination “across the
line from conceivable to plausible.” Twombly , 550 U. S.,
at 570.

															   To be sure, respondent can attempt to draw
certain contrasts between the pleadings the Court considered in Twombly and the pleadings at issue here. In Twombly , the complaint alleged general wrongdoing that
extended over a period of years, id., at 551, whereas here
the complaint alleges discrete wrongs—for instance, beatings—by
lower level Government actors. The allegations here, if true, and
if condoned by petitioners, could be the basis for some inference
of wrongful intent on petitioners’ part. Despite these
distinctions, respondent’s pleadings do not suffice to state a
claim. Unlike in Twombly , where the doctrine of respondeat superior could bind the corporate defendant,
here, as we have noted, petitioners cannot be held liable unless
they themselves acted on account of a constitutionally protected
characteristic. Yet respondent’s complaint does not contain any
factual allegation sufficient to plausibly suggest petitioners’
discriminatory state of mind. His pleadings thus do not meet the
standard necessary to comply with Rule 8.

															   It is important to note, however, that we
express no opinion concerning the sufficiency of respondent’s
complaint against the defendants who are not before us.
Respondent’s account of his prison ordeal alleges serious official
misconduct that we need not address here. Our decision is limited
to the determination that respondent’s complaint does not entitle
him to relief from petitioners.

															C

															   Respondent offers three arguments
that bear on our disposition of his case, but none is
persuasive.

															1

															   Respondent first says that our
decision in Twombly should be limited to pleadings made in
the context of an antitrust dispute. Iqbal Brief 37–38. This
argument is not supported by Twombly and is incompatible
with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Though Twombly determined the sufficiency of a complaint sounding in antitrust,
the decision was based on our interpretation and application of
Rule 8. 550 U. S., at 554. That Rule in turn governs the pleading
standard “in all civil actions and proceedings in the United States
district courts.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 1. Our decision in Twombly expounded the pleading standard for “all civil
actions,” ibid. , and it applies to antitrust and
discrimination suits alike. See 550 U. S., at 555–556, and
n. 3.

															2

															   Respondent next implies that our
construction of Rule 8 should be tempered where, as here, the Court
of Appeals has “instructed the district court to cabin discovery in
such a way as to preserve” petitioners’ defense of qualified
immunity “as much as possible in anticipation of a summary judgment
motion.” Iqbal Brief 27. We have held, however, that the question
presented by a motion to dismiss a complaint for insufficient
pleadings does not turn on the controls placed upon the discovery
process. Twombly , supra , at 559 (“It is no answer
to say that a claim just shy of a plausible entitlement to relief
can, if groundless, be weeded out early in the discovery process
through careful case management given the common lament that the
success of judicial supervision in checking discovery abuse has
been on the modest side” (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted)).

															   Our rejection of the
careful-case-management approach is especially important in suits
where Government-official defendants are entitled to assert the
defense of qualified immunity. The basic thrust of the
qualified-immunity doctrine is to free officials from the concerns
of litigation, including “avoidance of disruptive discovery.” Siegert v. Gilley , 500 U. S. 226 , 236
(1991) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). There are serious and
legitimate reasons for this. If a Government official is to devote
time to his or her duties, and to the formulation of sound and
responsible policies, it is counterproductive to require the
substantial diversion that is attendant to participating in
litigation and making informed decisions as to how it should
proceed. Litigation, though necessary to ensure that officials
comply with the law, exacts heavy costs in terms of efficiency and
expenditure of valuable time and resources that might otherwise be
directed to the proper execution of the work of the Government. The
costs of diversion are only magnified when Government officials are
charged with responding to, as Judge Cabranes aptly put it, “a
national and international security emergency unprecedented in the
history of the American Republic.” 490 F. 3d, at 179.

															   It is no answer to these concerns to say that
discovery for petitioners can be deferred while pretrial
proceedings continue for other defendants. It is quite likely that,
when discovery as to the other parties proceeds, it would prove
necessary for petitioners and their counsel to participate in the
process to ensure the case does not develop in a misleading or
slanted way that causes prejudice to their position. Even if
petitioners are not yet themselves subject to discovery orders,
then, they would not be free from the burdens of discovery.

															   We decline respondent’s invitation to relax
the pleading requirements on the ground that the Court of Appeals
promises petitioners minimally intrusive discovery. That promise
provides especially cold comfort in this pleading context, where we
are impelled to give real content to the concept of qualified
immunity for high-level officials who must be neither deterred nor
detracted from the vigorous performance of their duties. Because
respondent’s complaint is deficient under Rule 8, he is not
entitled to discovery, cabined or otherwise.

															3

															   Respondent finally maintains that
the Federal Rules expressly allow him to allege petitioners’
discriminatory intent “generally,” which he equates with a
conclusory allegation. Iqbal Brief 32 (citing Fed. Rule Civ. Proc.
9). It follows, respondent says, that his complaint is sufficiently
well pleaded because it claims that petitioners discriminated
against him “on account of [his] religion, race, and/or national
origin and for no legitimate penological interest.” Complaint ¶96,
App. to Pet. for Cert. 172a–173a. Were we required to accept this
allegation as true, respondent’s complaint would survive
petitioners’ motion to dismiss. But the Federal Rules do not
require courts to credit a complaint’s conclusory statements
without reference to its factual context.

															   It is true that Rule 9(b)
requires particularity when pleading “fraud or mistake,” while
allowing “[m]alice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of a
person’s mind [to] be alleged generally.” But “generally” is a
relative term. In the context of Rule 9, it is to be compared to
the particularity requirement applicable to fraud or mistake. Rule
9 merely excuses a party from pleading discriminatory intent under
an elevated pleading standard. It does not give him license to
evade the less rigid—though still operative—strictures of Rule 8.
See 5A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure
§1301, p. 291 (3d ed. 2004) (“[A] rigid rule requiring the
detailed pleading of a condition of mind would be undesirable
because, absent overriding considerations pressing for a
specificity requirement, as in the case of averments of fraud or
mistake, the general ‘short and plain statement of the claim’
mandate in Rule 8(a) … should control the second sentence of Rule
9(b)”). And Rule 8 does not empower respondent to plead the bare
elements of his cause of action, affix the label “general
allegation,” and expect his complaint to survive a motion to
dismiss.

															V

															   We hold that respondent’s
complaint fails to plead sufficient facts to state a claim for
purposeful and unlawful discrimination against petitioners. The
Court of Appeals should decide in the first instance whether to
remand to the District Court so that respondent can seek leave to
amend his deficient complaint.

															   The judgment of the Court of
Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.

															It is so ordered. SOUTER, J., DISSENTING ASHCROFT V. IQBAL 556 U. S. ____ (2009) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 07-1015 JOHN D. ASHCROFT, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL,
et al., PETITIONERS v. JAVAID IQBAL et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the second circuit

															[May 18, 2009]

															   Justice Souter, with whom Justice
Stevens, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.

															   This case is here on the
uncontested assumption that Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed.
Narcotics Agents , 403 U. S. 388 (1971),
allows personal liability based on a federal officer’s violation of
an individual’s rights under the First and Fifth Amendments, and it
comes to us with the explicit concession of petitioners Ashcroft
and Mueller that an officer may be subject to Bivens liability as a supervisor on grounds other than respondeat
superior . The Court apparently rejects this concession and,
although it has no bearing on the majority’s resolution of this
case, does away with supervisory liability under Bivens .
The majority then misapplies the pleading standard under Bell
Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U. S. 544 (2007), to
conclude that the complaint fails to state a claim . I
respectfully dissent from both the rejection of supervisory
liability as a cognizable claim in the face of petitioners’
concession, and from the holding that the complaint fails to
satisfy Rule 8(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

															I

															A

															   Respondent Iqbal was arrested in
November 2001 on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States
and fraud in relation to identification documents, and was placed
in pretrial detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center in
Brooklyn, New York. Iqbal v. Hasty, 490
F. 3d 143, 147–148 (CA2 2007). He alleges that FBI officials
carried out a discriminatory policy by designating him as a person
“ ‘of high interest’ ” in the investigation of the
September 11 attacks solely because of his race, religion, or
national origin. Owing to this designation he was placed in the
detention center’s Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit for
over six months while awaiting the fraud trial. Id ., at
148. As I will mention more fully below, Iqbal contends that
Ashcroft and Mueller were at the very least aware of the
discriminatory detention policy and condoned it (and perhaps even
took part in devising it), thereby violating his First and Fifth
Amendment rights.[ Footnote
1 ]

															   Iqbal claims that on the day he
was transferred to the special unit, prison guards, without
provocation, “picked him up and threw him against the wall, kicked
him in the stomach, punched him in the face, and dragged him across
the room.” First Amended Complaint in No. 04–CV–1809 (JG) (JA),
¶113, App. to Pet. for Cert. 176a (hereinafter Complaint). He says
that after being attacked a second time he sought medical attention
but was denied care for two weeks. Id., ¶¶187–188, at
189a. According to Iqbal’s complaint, prison staff in the special
unit subjected him to unjustified strip and body cavity searches, id., ¶¶136–140, at 181a, verbally berated him as a
“ ‘terrorist’ ” and “ ‘Muslim killer,’ ” id., ¶87, at 170a–171a, refused to give him adequate food, id., ¶91, at 171a–172a, and intentionally turned on air
conditioning during the winter and heating during the summer, id., ¶84, at 170a. He claims that prison staff interfered
with his attempts to pray and engage in religious study, id. , ¶¶153–154, at 183a–184a, and with his access to
counsel, id., ¶¶168, 171, at 186a–187a.

															   The District Court denied Ashcroft and
Mueller’s motion to dismiss Iqbal’s discrimination claim, and the
Court of Appeals affirmed. Ashcroft and Mueller then asked this
Court to grant certiorari on two questions:

															“1. Whether a conclusory allegation that a
cabinet-level officer or other high-ranking official knew of,
condoned, or agreed to subject a plaintiff to allegedly
unconstitutional acts purportedly committed by subordinate
officials is sufficient to state individual-capacity claims against
those officials under Bivens .

															“2. Whether a cabinet-level officer or other high-ranking
official may be held personally liable for the allegedly
unconstitutional acts of subordinate officials on the ground that,
as high-level supervisors, they had constructive notice of the
discrimination allegedly carried out by such subordinate
officials.” Pet. for Cert. I.

															The Court granted certiorari on both questions. The
first is about pleading; the second goes to the liability
standard.

															   In the first question, Ashcroft and Mueller
did not ask whether “a cabinet-level officer or other high-ranking
official” who “knew of, condoned, or agreed to subject a plaintiff
to allegedly unconstitutional acts committed by subordinate
officials” was subject to liability under Bivens. In fact,
they conceded in their petition for certiorari that they would be
liable if they had “actual knowledge” of discrimination by their
subordinates and exhibited “ ‘deliberate indifference’ ”
to that discrimination. Pet. for Cert. 29 (quoting Farmer v. Brennan , 511 U. S. 825 , 837
(1994)). Instead, they asked the Court to address whether Iqbal’s
allegations against them (which they call conclusory) were
sufficient to satisfy Rule 8(a)(2), and in particular whether the
Court of Appeals misapplied our decision in Twombly construing that rule. Pet. for Cert. 11–24.

															   In the second question, Ashcroft and Mueller
asked this Court to say whether they could be held personally
liable for the actions of their subordinates based on the theory
that they had constructive notice of their subordinates’
unconstitutional conduct. Id. , at 25–33. This was an odd
question to pose, since Iqbal has never claimed that Ashcroft and
Mueller are liable on a constructive notice theory. Be that as it
may, the second question challenged only one possible ground for
imposing supervisory liability under Bivens . In sum, both
questions assumed that a defendant could raise a Bivens claim on theories of supervisory liability other than constructive
notice, and neither question asked the parties or the Court to
address the elements of such liability.

															   The briefing at the merits stage was no
different. Ashcroft and Mueller argued that the factual allegations
in Iqbal’s complaint were insufficient to overcome their claim of
qualified immunity; they also contended that they could not be held
liable on a theory of constructive notice. Again they conceded,
however, that they would be subject to supervisory liability if
they “had actual knowledge of the assertedly discriminatory nature
of the classification of suspects as being ‘of high interest’ and
they were deliberately indifferent to that discrimination.” Brief
for Petitioners 50; see also Reply Brief for Petitioners 21–22.
Iqbal argued that the allegations in his complaint were sufficient
under Rule 8(a)(2) and Twombly , and conceded that as a
matter of law he could not recover under a theory of respondeat
superior . See Brief for Respondent Iqbal 46. Thus, the parties
agreed as to a proper standard of supervisory liability, and the
disputed question was whether Iqbal’s complaint satisfied Rule
8(a)(2).

															   Without acknowledging the parties’ agreement
as to the standard of supervisory liability, the Court asserts that
it must sua sponte decide the scope of supervisory
liability here. Ante , at 11–13. I agree that, absent
Ashcroft and Mueller’s concession, that determination would have to
be made; without knowing the elements of a supervisory liability
claim, there would be no way to determine whether a plaintiff had
made factual allegations amounting to grounds for relief on that
claim. See Twombly , 550 U. S., at 557–558. But deciding
the scope of supervisory Bivens liability in this case is
uncalled for. There are several reasons, starting with the position
Ashcroft and Mueller have taken and following from it.

															   First, Ashcroft and Mueller have, as noted,
made the critical concession that a supervisor’s knowledge of a
subordinate’s unconstitutional conduct and deliberate indifference
to that conduct are grounds for Bivens liability. Iqbal
seeks to recover on a theory that Ashcroft and Mueller at least
knowingly acquiesced (and maybe more than acquiesced) in the
discriminatory acts of their subordinates; if he can show this, he
will satisfy Ashcroft and Mueller’s own test for supervisory
liability. See Farmer , supra , at 842 (explaining
that a prison official acts with “deliberate indifference” if “the
official acted or failed to act despite his knowledge of a
substantial risk of serious harm”). We do not normally override a
party’s concession, see, e.g. , United States v. International Business Machines Corp. , 517 U. S. 843 , 855
(1996) (holding that “[i]t would be inappropriate for us to
[e]xamine in this case, without the benefit of the parties’
briefing,” an issue the Government had conceded), and doing so is
especially inappropriate when, as here, the issue is unnecessary to
decide the case, see infra , at 8. I would therefore accept
Ashcroft and Mueller’s concession for purposes of this case and
proceed to consider whether the complaint alleges at least
knowledge and deliberate indifference.

															   Second, because of the concession, we have
received no briefing or argument on the proper scope of supervisory
liability, much less the full-dress argument we normally require. Mapp v. Ohio , 367 U. S. 643 , 676–677
(1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting). We consequently are in no position
to decide the precise contours of supervisory liability here, this
issue being a complicated one that has divided the Courts of
Appeals. See infra , at 7–8. This Court recently remarked
on the danger of “bad decisionmaking” when the briefing on a
question is “woefully inadequate,” Pearson v. Callahan , 555 U. S. ___, ___ (2009) (slip op., at 14), yet
today the majority answers a question with no briefing at all. The
attendant risk of error is palpable.

															   Finally, the Court’s approach is most unfair
to Iqbal. He was entitled to rely on Ashcroft and Mueller’s
concession, both in their petition for certiorari and in their
merits briefs, that they could be held liable on a theory of
knowledge and deliberate indifference. By overriding that
concession, the Court denies Iqbal a fair chance to be heard on the
question.

															B

															   The majority, however, does
ignore the concession. According to the majority, because Iqbal
concededly cannot recover on a theory of respondeat
superior , it follows that he cannot recover under any theory
of supervisory liability. Ante , at 13. The majority says
that in a Bivens action, “where masters do not answer for
the torts of their servants,” “the term ‘supervisory liability’ is
a misnomer,” and that “[a]bsent vicarious liability, each
Government official, his or her title notwithstanding, is only
liable for his or her own misconduct.” Ibid . Lest there be
any mistake, in these words the majority is not narrowing the scope
of supervisory liability; it is eliminating Bivens supervisory liability entirely. The nature of a supervisory
liability theory is that the supervisor may be liable, under
certain conditions, for the wrongdoing of his subordinates, and it
is this very principle that the majority rejects. Ante , at
19 (“[P]etitioners cannot be held liable unless they themselves
acted on account of a constitutionally protected
characteristic”).

															   The dangers of the majority’s
readiness to proceed without briefing and argument are apparent in
its cursory analysis, which rests on the assumption that only two
outcomes are possible here: respondeat superior liability,
in which “an employer is subject to liability for torts committed
by employees while acting within the scope of their employment,”
Restatement (Third) of Agency §2.04 (2005), or no supervisory
liability at all. The dichotomy is false. Even if an employer is
not liable for the actions of his employee solely because the
employee was acting within the scope of employment, there still
might be conditions to render a supervisor liable for the conduct
of his subordinate. See, e.g., Whitfield v. Meléndez-Rivera , 431 F. 3d 1, 14 (CA1 2005)
(distinguishing between respondeat superior liability and
supervisory liability); Bennett v. Eastpointe ,
410 F. 3d 810, 818 (CA6 2005) (same); Richardson v. Goord , 347 F. 3d 431, 435 (CA2 2003) (same); Hall v. Lombardi , 996 F. 2d 954, 961 (CA8
1993) (same).

															   In fact, there is quite a spectrum of possible
tests for supervisory liability: it could be imposed where a
supervisor has actual knowledge of a subordinate’s constitutional
violation and acquiesces, see, e.g., Baker v. Monroe Twp. , 50 F. 3d 1186, 1994 (CA3 1995); Woodward v. Worland , 977 F. 2d 1392, 1400
(CA10 1992); or where supervisors “ ‘know about the conduct
and facilitate it, approve it, condone it, or turn a blind eye for
fear of what they might see,’ ” International Action
Center v. United States , 365 F. 3d 20, 28 (CADC
2004) (Roberts, J.) (quoting Jones v. Chicago ,
856 F. 2d 985, 992 (CA7 1988) (Posner, J.)); or where the
supervisor has no actual knowledge of the violation but was
reckless in his supervision of the subordinate, see, e.g., Hall , supra , at 961; or where the supervisor was
grossly negligent, see, e.g., Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico , 864 F. 2d 881, 902 (CA1
1988). I am unsure what the general test for supervisory liability
should be, and in the absence of briefing and argument I am in no
position to choose or devise one.

															   Neither is the majority, but what is most
remarkable about its foray into supervisory liability is that its
conclusion has no bearing on its resolution of the case. The
majority says that all of the allegations in the complaint that
Ashcroft and Mueller authorized, condoned, or even were aware of
their subordinates’ discriminatory conduct are “conclusory” and
therefore are “not entitled to be assumed true.” Ante , at
17. As I explain below, this conclusion is unsound, but on the
majority’s understanding of Rule 8(a)(2) pleading standards, even
if the majority accepted Ashcroft and Mueller’s concession and
asked whether the complaint sufficiently alleges knowledge and
deliberate indifference, it presumably would still conclude that
the complaint fails to plead sufficient facts and must be
dismissed.[ Footnote 2 ]

															II

															   Given petitioners’ concession,
the complaint satisfies Rule 8(a)(2). Ashcroft and Mueller admit
they are liable for their subordinates’ conduct if they “had actual
knowledge of the assertedly discriminatory nature of the
classification of suspects as being ‘of high interest’ and they
were deliberately indifferent to that discrimination.” Brief for
Petitioners 50. Iqbal alleges that after the September 11 attacks
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) “arrested and detained
thousands of Arab Muslim men,” Complaint ¶47, App. to Pet. for
Cert. 164a, that many of these men were designated by high-ranking
FBI officials as being “ ‘of high interest,’ ” id. , ¶¶48, 50, at 164a, and that in many cases, including
Iqbal’s, this designation was made “because of the race, religion,
and national origin of the detainees, and not because of any
evidence of the detainees’ involvement in supporting terrorist
activity,” id. , ¶49. The complaint further alleges that
Ashcroft was the “principal architect of the policies and practices
challenged,” id. , ¶10, at 157a, and that Mueller “was
instrumental in the adoption, promulgation, and implementation of
the policies and practices challenged,” id. , ¶11.
According to the complaint, Ashcroft and Mueller “knew of,
condoned, and willfully and maliciously agreed to subject [Iqbal]
to these conditions of confinement as a matter of policy, solely on
account of [his] religion, race, and/or national origin and for no
legitimate penological interest.” Id. , ¶96, at 172a–173a.
The complaint thus alleges, at a bare minimum, that Ashcroft and
Mueller knew of and condoned the discriminatory policy their
subordinates carried out. Actually, the complaint goes further in
alleging that Ashcroft and Muller affirmatively acted to create the
discriminatory detention policy. If these factual allegations are
true, Ashcroft and Mueller were, at the very least, aware of the
discriminatory policy being implemented and deliberately
indifferent to it.

															   Ashcroft and Mueller argue that
these allegations fail to satisfy the “plausibility standard” of Twombly . They contend that Iqbal’s claims are implausible
because such high-ranking officials “tend not to be personally
involved in the specific actions of lower-level officers down the
bureaucratic chain of command.” Brief for Petitioners 28. But this
response bespeaks a fundamental misunderstanding of the enquiry
that Twombly demands. Twombly does not require a
court at the motion-to-dismiss stage to consider whether the
factual allegations are probably true. We made it clear, on the
contrary, that a court must take the allegations as true, no matter
how skeptical the court may be. See Twombly , 550 U. S., at
555 (a court must proceed “on the assumption that all the
allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact)”); id ., at 556 (“[A] well-pleaded complaint may proceed even
if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of the facts alleged
is improbable”); see also Neitzke v. Williams , 490 U. S. 319 ,
327 (1989) (“Rule 12(b)(6) does not countenance … dismissals based
on a judge’s disbelief of a complaint’s factual allegations”). The
sole exception to this rule lies with allegations that are
sufficiently fantastic to defy reality as we know it: claims about
little green men, or the plaintiff’s recent trip to Pluto, or
experiences in time travel. That is not what we have here.

															   Under Twombly , the relevant question
is whether, assuming the factual allegations are true, the
plaintiff has stated a ground for relief that is plausible. That
is, in Twombly ’s words, a plaintiff must “allege facts”
that, taken as true, are “suggestive of illegal conduct.” 550 U.
S., at 564, n. 8. In Twombly , we were faced with
allegations of a conspiracy to violate §1 of the Sherman Act
through parallel conduct. The difficulty was that the conduct
alleged was “consistent with conspiracy, but just as much in line
with a wide swath of rational and competitive business strategy
unilaterally prompted by common perceptions of the market.” Id. , at 554. We held that in that sort of circumstance,
“[a]n allegation of parallel conduct is … much like a naked
assertion of conspiracy in a §1 complaint: it gets the complaint
close to stating a claim, but without some further factual
enhancement it stops short of the line between possibility and
plausibility of ‘entitlement to relief.’ ” Id., at
557 (brackets omitted). Here, by contrast, the allegations in the
complaint are neither confined to naked legal conclusions nor
consistent with legal conduct. The complaint alleges that FBI
officials discriminated against Iqbal solely on account of his
race, religion, and national origin, and it alleges the knowledge
and deliberate indifference that, by Ashcroft and Mueller’s own
admission, are sufficient to make them liable for the illegal
action. Iqbal’s complaint therefore contains “enough facts to state
a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. , at
570.

															   I do not understand the majority to disagree
with this understanding of “plausibility” under Twombly .
Rather, the majority discards the allegations discussed above with
regard to Ashcroft and Mueller as conclusory, and is left
considering only two statements in the complaint: that “the [FBI],
under the direction of Defendant MUELLER, arrested and detained
thousands of Arab Muslim men … as part of its investigation of the
events of September 11,” Complaint ¶47, App. to Pet. for Cert.
164a, and that “[t]he policy of holding post-September-11th
detainees in highly restrictive conditions of confinement until
they were ‘cleared’ by the FBI was approved by Defendants ASHCROFT
and MUELLER in discussions in the weeks after September 11, 2001,” id. , ¶69, at 168a. See ante , at 17. I think the
majority is right in saying that these allegations suggest only
that Ashcroft and Mueller “sought to keep suspected terrorists in
the most secure conditions available until the suspects could be
cleared of terrorist activity,” ante , at 19, and that this
produced “a disparate, incidental impact on Arab Muslims,” ante , at 18. And I agree that the two allegations selected
by the majority, standing alone, do not state a plausible
entitlement to relief for unconstitutional discrimination.

															   But these allegations do not stand alone as
the only significant, nonconclusory statements in the complaint,
for the complaint contains many allegations linking Ashcroft and
Mueller to the discriminatory practices of their subordinates. See
Complaint ¶10, App. to Pet. for Cert. 157a (Ashcroft was the
“principal architect” of the discriminatory policy); id. ,
¶11 (Mueller was “instrumental” in adopting and executing the
discriminatory policy); id. , ¶96, at 172a–173a (Ashcroft
and Mueller “knew of, condoned, and willfully and maliciously
agreed to subject” Iqbal to harsh conditions “as a matter of
policy, solely on account of [his] religion, race, and/or national
origin and for no legitimate penological interest”).

															   The majority says that these are “bare
assertions” that, “much like the pleading of conspiracy in Twombly , amount to nothing more than a ‘formulaic
recitation of the elements’ of a constitutional discrimination
claim” and therefore are “not entitled to be assumed true.” Ante , at 17 (quoting Twombly , supra , at
555). The fallacy of the majority’s position, however, lies in
looking at the relevant assertions in isolation. The complaint
contains specific allegations that, in the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks, the Chief of the FBI’s International
Terrorism Operations Section and the Assistant Special Agent in
Charge for the FBI’s New York Field Office implemented a policy
that discriminated against Arab Muslim men, including Iqbal, solely
on account of their race, religion, or national origin. See
Complaint ¶¶47–53, App. to Pet. for Cert. 164a–165a. Viewed in
light of these subsidiary allegations, the allegations singled out
by the majority as “conclusory” are no such thing. Iqbal’s claim is
not that Ashcroft and Mueller “knew of, condoned, and willfully and
maliciously agreed to subject” him to a discriminatory practice
that is left undefined; his allegation is that “they knew of,
condoned, and willfully and maliciously agreed to subject” him to a
particular, discrete, discriminatory policy detailed in the
complaint. Iqbal does not say merely that Ashcroft was the
architect of some amorphous discrimination, or that Mueller was
instrumental in an ill-defined constitutional violation; he alleges
that they helped to create the discriminatory policy he has
described. Taking the complaint as a whole, it gives Ashcroft and
Mueller “ ‘fair notice of what the … claim is and the grounds
upon which it rests.’ ” Twombly , 550 U. S., at 555
(quoting Conley v. Gibson , 355 U. S. 41 , 47 (1957)
(omission in original)).

															   That aside, the majority’s holding that the
statements it selects are conclusory cannot be squared with its
treatment of certain other allegations in the complaint as
nonconclusory. For example, the majority takes as true the
statement that “[t]he policy of holding post-September-11th
detainees in highly restrictive conditions of confinement until
they were ‘cleared’ by the FBI was approved by Defendants ASHCROFT
and MUELLER in discussions in the weeks after September 11, 2001.”
Complaint ¶69, App. to Pet. for Cert. 168a; see ante , at
17. This statement makes two points: (1) after September 11, the
FBI held certain detainees in highly restrictive conditions, and
(2) Ashcroft and Mueller discussed and approved these conditions.
If, as the majority says, these allegations are not conclusory,
then I cannot see why the majority deems it merely conclusory when
Iqbal alleges that (1) after September 11, the FBI designated Arab
Muslim detainees as being of “ ‘high interest’ ” “because
of the race, religion, and national origin of the detainees, and
not because of any evidence of the detainees’ involvement in
supporting terrorist activity,” Complaint ¶¶48–50, App. to Pet. for
Cert. 164a, and (2) Ashcroft and Mueller “knew of, condoned, and
willfully and maliciously agreed” to that discrimination, id. , ¶96, at 172a. By my lights, there is no principled
basis for the majority’s disregard of the allegations linking
Ashcroft and Mueller to their subordinates’ discrimination.

															   I respectfully dissent. Footnote 1 Iqbal makes no claim against Ashcroft and
Mueller based simply on his right, as a pretrial detainee, to be
free from punishment prior to an adjudication of guilt on the fraud
charges. See Bell v. Wolfish , 441 U. S. 520 , 535
(1979). Footnote 2 If I am mistaken, and the majority’s
rejection of the concession is somehow outcome determinative, then
its approach is even more unfair to Iqbal than previously
explained, see supra , at 6, for Iqbal had no reason to
argue the (apparently dispositive) supervisory liability standard
in light of the concession. 556 U. S. ____ (2009) ASHCROFT V. IQBAL 556 U. S. ____ (2009) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 07-1015 JOHN D. ASHCROFT, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL,
et al., PETITIONERS v. JAVAID IQBAL et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the second circuit

															[May 18, 2009]

															   Justice Breyer, dissenting.

															   I agree with Justice Souter and
join his dissent. I write separately to point out that, like the
Court, I believe it important to prevent unwarranted litigation
from interfering with “the proper execution of the work of the
Government.” Ante , at 21. But I cannot find in that need
adequate justification for the Court’s interpretation of Bell
Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U. S. 544 (2007),
and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8. The law, after all, provides
trial courts with other legal weapons designed to prevent
unwarranted interference. As the Second Circuit explained, where a
Government defendant asserts a qualified immunity defense, a trial
court, responsible for managing a case and “mindful of the need to
vindicate the purpose of the qualified immunity defense,” can
structure discovery in ways that diminish the risk of imposing
unwarranted burdens upon public officials. See Iqbal v. Hasty , 490 F.3d 143, 158 (2007). A district court, for
example, can begin discovery with lower level government defendants
before determining whether a case can be made to allow discovery
related to higher level government officials. See ibid .
Neither the briefs nor the Court’s opinion provides convincing
grounds for finding these alternative case-management tools
inadequate, either in general or in the case before us. For this
reason, as well as for the independently sufficient reasons set
forth in Justice Souter’s opinion, I would affirm the Second
Circuit.

Summary: In *Ashcroft v. Iqbal*, the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff must plead factual matter that, if taken as true, states a claim that the defendants deprived him of his clearly established constitutional rights to proceed with a lawsuit. The Court found that the plaintiff's pleadings were insufficient to state a claim against the high-level government officials named as defendants, as the plaintiff did not allege specific facts linking them to the unconstitutional policy that subjected him to harsh conditions of confinement based on his race, religion, or national origin.


NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print
goes to press.

															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 18–1086

															_________________

															LUCKY BRAND DUNGAREES, INC., et al.,
PETITIONERS v. MARCEL FASHIONS GROUP, INC.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[May 14, 2020]

															Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															This case arises from protracted litigation
between petitioners Lucky Brand Dungarees, Inc., and others
(collectively Lucky Brand) and respondent Marcel Fashions Group,
Inc. (Marcel). In the latest lawsuit between the two, Lucky Brand
asserted a defense against Marcel that it had not pressed fully in
a preceding suit between the parties. This Court is asked to
determine whether Lucky Brand’s failure to litigate the defense in
the earlier suit barred Lucky Brand from invoking it in the later
suit. Because the parties agree that, at a minimum, the preclusion
of such a defense in this context requires that the two suits share
the same claim to relief—and because we find that the two suits
here did not—Lucky Brand was not barred from raising its defense in
the later action.

															I

															Marcel and Lucky Brand both sell jeans and
other apparel. Both entities also use the word “Lucky” as part of
their marks on clothing. In 1986, Marcel received a federal
trademark registration for “Get Lucky”; a few years later, in 1990,
Lucky Brand began selling apparel using the registered trademark
“Lucky Brand” and other marks that include the word “Lucky.” 779
F.3d 102, 105 (CA2 2015).

															Three categories of marks are at issue in this
case: Marcel’s “Get Lucky” mark; Lucky Brand’s “Lucky Brand” mark;
and various other marks owned by Lucky Brand that contain the word
“Lucky.” These trademarks have led to nearly 20 years of litigation
between the two companies, proceeding in three rounds.

															A

															In 2001—the first round—Marcel sued Lucky
Brand, alleging that Lucky Brand’s use of the phrase “Get Lucky” in
advertisements infringed Marcel’s trademark. In 2003, the parties
signed a settlement agreement. As part of the deal, Lucky Brand
agreed to stop using the phrase “Get Lucky.” App. 191. In exchange,
Marcel agreed to release any claims regarding Lucky Brand’s use of
its own trademarks. Id. , at 191–192.

															B

															The ink was barely dry on the settlement
agreement when, in 2005, the parties began a second round of
litigation (2005 Action). Lucky Brand filed suit, alleging that
Marcel and its licensee violated its trademarks by copying its
designs and logos in a new clothing line. As relevant here, Marcel
filed several counterclaims that all turned, in large part, on
Lucky Brand’s alleged continued use of “Get Lucky”: One batch of
allegations asserted that Lucky Brand had continued to use Marcel’s
“Get Lucky” mark in violation of the settlement agreement, while
others alleged that Lucky Brand’s use of the phrase “Get Lucky” and
“Lucky Brand” together was “confusingly similar to”—and thus
infringed––Marcel’s “Get Lucky” mark. Defendants’ Answer,
Affirmative Defenses, and Counterclaims to Plaintiffs’ Complaint in
No. 1:05–cv–06757 (SDNY), Doc. 40–2, p. 39; see id. , at
34–41. None of Marcel’s counterclaims alleged that Lucky Brand’s
use of its own marks alone— i.e. , independent of any alleged
use of “Get Lucky”—infringed Marcel’s “Get Lucky” mark.

															Lucky Brand moved to dismiss the counterclaims,
alleging that they were barred by the release provision of the
settlement agreement. After the District Court denied the motion
without prejudice, Lucky Brand noted the release defense once more
in its answer to Marcel’s counterclaims. But as the 2005 Action
proceeded, Lucky Brand never again invoked the release defense.

															The 2005 Action concluded in two phases. First,
as a sanction for misconduct during discovery, the District Court
concluded that Lucky Brand violated the settlement agreement by
continuing to use “Get Lucky” and permanently enjoined Lucky Brand
from copying or imitating Marcel’s “Get Lucky” mark. Order Granting
Partial Summary Judgment and Injunction in No. 1:05–cv–06757, Doc.
183; see also App. 203–204. The injunction did not enjoin, or even
mention, Lucky Brand’s use of any other marks or phrases containing
the word “Lucky.” Order Granting Partial Summary Judgment and
Injunction, Doc. 183. The case then proceeded to trial. The jury
found against Lucky Brand on Marcel’s remaining counterclaims—those
that alleged infringement from Lucky Brand’s continued use of the
“Get Lucky” catchphrase alongside its own marks. See Brief for
Respondent 52.

															C

															In April 2011, the third round of litigation
began: Marcel filed an action against Lucky Brand (2011 Action),
maintaining that Lucky Brand continued to infringe Marcel’s “Get
Lucky” mark and, in so doing, contravened the judgment issued in
the 2005 Action.

															This complaint did not reprise Marcel’s earlier
allegation (in the 2005 Action) that Lucky Brand continued to use
the “Get Lucky” phrase. Marcel argued only that Lucky Brand’s
continued, post-2010 use of Lucky Brand’s own marks—some of which
used the word “Lucky”—infringed Marcel’s “Get Lucky” mark in a
manner that (according to Marcel) was previously found
infringing.[ 1 ] Marcel requested
that the District Court enjoin Lucky Brand from using any of Lucky
Brand’s marks containing the word “Lucky.”

															The District Court granted Lucky Brand summary
judgment, concluding that Marcel’s claims in the 2011 Action were
essentially the same as its counterclaims in the 2005 Action.

															But the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
disagreed. 779 F.3d 102. The court concluded that Marcel’s claims
in the 2011 Action were distinct from those it had asserted in the
2005 Action, because the claims at issue in the 2005 Action were
“for earlier infringements.” Id. , at 110. As the court
noted, “[w]inning a judgment . . . does not deprive the
plaintiff of the right to sue” for the defendant’s “subsequent
similar violations.” Id. , at 107.

															The Second Circuit further rejected Marcel’s
request to hold Lucky Brand in contempt for violating the
injunction issued in the 2005 Action. The court noted that the
conduct at issue in the 2011 Action was Lucky Brand’s use of its
own marks—not the use of the phrase “Get Lucky.” By contrast, the
2005 injunction prohibited Lucky Brand from using the “Get Lucky”
mark—not Lucky Brand’s own marks that happened to contain the word
“Lucky.” Id. , at 111. Moreover, the court reasoned that the
jury in the 2005 Action had been “free to find infringement of
Marcel’s ‘Get Lucky’ mark based solely on Lucky Brand’s use of [the
phrase] ‘Get Lucky.’ ” Id. , at 112. The court vacated
and remanded for further proceedings.

															On remand to the District Court, Lucky Brand
moved to dismiss, arguing—for the first time since its motion to
dismiss and answer in the 2005 Action—that Marcel had released its
claims by entering the settlement agreement. Marcel countered that
Lucky Brand was precluded from invoking the release defense,
because it could have pursued the defense fully in the 2005 Action
but had neglected to do so. The District Court granted Lucky
Brand’s motion to dismiss, holding that it could assert its release
defense and that the settlement agreement indeed barred Marcel’s
claims.

															The Second Circuit vacated and remanded,
concluding that a doctrine it termed “defense preclusion”
prohibited Lucky Brand from raising the release defense in the 2011
Action. 898 F.3d 232 (2018). Noting that a different category of
preclusion—issue preclusion—may be wielded against a defendant, see Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore , 439 U.S.
322 (1979), the court reasoned that the same should be true of
claim preclusion: A defendant should be precluded from raising an
unlitigated defense that it should have raised earlier. The panel
then held that “defense preclusion” bars a party from raising a
defense where: “(i) a previous action involved an adjudication on
the merits”; “(ii) the previous action involved the same parties”;
“(iii) the defense was either asserted or could have been asserted,
in the prior action”; and “(iv) the district court, in its
discretion, concludes that preclusion of the defense is
appropriate.” 898 F. 3d, at 241. Finding each factor satisfied
in this case, the panel vacated the District Court’s judgment. We
granted certiorari, 588 U. S. ___ (2019), to resolve
differences among the Circuits regarding when, if ever, claim
preclusion applies to defenses raised in a later suit. Compare 898
F. 3d, at 241, with Hallco Mfg. Co. v. Foster , 256 F.3d 1290 , 1297–1298 (CA Fed. 2001); McKinnon v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama , 935 F.2d 1187, 1192
(CA11 1991).

															II

															A

															This case asks whether so-called “defense
preclusion” is a valid application of res judicata: a term that now
comprises two distinct doctrines regarding the preclusive effect of
prior litigation. 18 C. Wright, H. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal
Practice and Procedure §4402 (3d ed. 2016) (Wright & Miller).
The first is issue preclusion (sometimes called collateral
estoppel), which precludes a party from relitigating an issue
actually decided in a prior case and necessary to the judgment. Allen v. McCurry , 449 U.S.
90 , 94 (1980); see Parklane Hosiery , 439 U. S., at
326, n. 5.

															The second doctrine is claim preclusion
(sometimes itself called res judicata). Unlike issue preclusion,
claim preclusion prevents parties from raising issues that could
have been raised and decided in a prior action—even if they were
not actually litigated. If a later suit advances the same claim as
an earlier suit between the same parties, the earlier suit’s
judgment “prevents litigation of all grounds for, or defenses to,
recovery that were previously available to the parties, regardless
of whether they were asserted or determined in the prior
proceeding.” Brown v. Felsen , 442
U.S. 127 , 131 (1979); see also Wright & Miller §4407. Suits
involve the same claim (or “cause of action”) when they
“ ‘aris[e] from the same transaction,’ ” United
States v. Tohono O’odham Nation , 563
U.S. 307 , 316 (2011) (quoting Kremer v. Chemical
Constr. Corp. , 456 U.S.
461 , 482, n. 22 (1982)), or involve a “common nucleus of
operative facts,” Restatement (Second) of Judgments §24, Comment b , p. 199 (1982) (Restatement (Second)).

															Put another way, claim preclusion “describes the
rules formerly known as ‘merger’ and ‘bar.’ ” Taylor v. Sturgell , 553 U.S.
880 , 892, n. 5 (2008). “If the plaintiff wins, the entire
claim is merged in the judgment; the plaintiff cannot bring a
second independent action for additional relief, and the defendant
cannot avoid the judgment by offering new defenses.” Wright &
Miller §4406. But “[i]f the second lawsuit involves a new claim or
cause of action, the parties may raise assertions or defenses that
were omitted from the first lawsuit even though they were equally
relevant to the first cause of action.” Ibid. As the Second Circuit itself seemed to
recognize, see 898 F. 3d, at 236–237, this Court has never
explicitly recognized “defense preclusion” as a standalone category
of res judicata, unmoored from the two guideposts of issue
preclusion and claim preclusion. Instead, our case law indicates
that any such preclusion of defenses must, at a minimum, satisfy
the strictures of issue preclusion or claim preclusion. See, e.g. , Davis v. Brown , 94 U.S.
423 , 428 (1877) (holding that where two lawsuits involved
different claims, preclusion operates “only upon the matter
actually at issue and determined in the original action”).[ 2 ] The parties thus agree that where,
as here, issue preclusion does not apply, a defense can be barred
only if the “causes of action are the same” in the two suits—that
is, where they share a “ ‘common nucleus of operative
fact[s].’ ” Brief for Respondent 2, 27, 31, 50; accord, Reply
Brief 3.

															B

															Put simply, the two suits here were grounded
on different conduct, involving different marks, occurring at
different times. They thus did not share a “common nucleus of
operative facts.” Restatement (Second) §24, Comment b , at
199.

															To start, claims to relief may be the same for
the purposes of claim preclusion if, among other things, “ ‘a
different judgment in the second action would impair or destroy
rights or interests established by the judgment entered in the
first action.’ ” Wright & Miller §4407. Here, however, the
2011 Action did not imperil the judgment of the 2005 Action because
the lawsuits involved both different conduct and different
trademarks.

															In the 2005 Action, Marcel alleged that Lucky
Brand infringed Marcel’s “Get Lucky” mark both by directly
imitating its “Get Lucky” mark and by using the “Get Lucky” slogan
alongside Lucky Brand’s other marks in a way that created consumer
confusion. Brief for Respondent 52. Marcel appears to admit, thus,
that its claims in the 2005 Action depended on Lucky Brand’s
alleged use of “Get Lucky.” Id., at 9–10 (“Marcel’s
reverse-confusion theory [in the 2005 Action] depended, in part, on
Lucky’s continued imitation of the GET LUCKY mark”).

															By contrast, the 2011 Action did not involve any
alleged use of the “Get Lucky” phrase. Indeed, Lucky Brand had been
enjoined in the 2005 Action from using “Get Lucky,” and in the 2011
Action, Lucky Brand was found not to have violated that injunction.
779 F. 3d, at 111–112. The parties thus do not argue that
Lucky Brand continued to use “Get Lucky” after the 2005 Action
concluded, and at oral argument, counsel for Marcel appeared to
confirm that Marcel’s claims in the 2011 Action did not allege that
Lucky Brand continued to use “Get Lucky.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 46.
Instead, Marcel alleged in the 2011 Action that Lucky Brand
committed infringement by using Lucky Brand’s own marks containing
the word “Lucky”—not the “Get Lucky” mark itself. Plainly, then,
the 2011 Action challenged different conduct, involving different
marks.

															Not only that, but the complained-of conduct in
the 2011 Action occurred after the conclusion of the 2005 Action.
Claim preclusion generally “does not bar claims that are predicated
on events that postdate the filing of the initial complaint.” Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt , 579 U. S.
___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 12) (internal quotation marks
omitted); Lawlor v. National Screen Service Corp. , 349 U.S.
322 , 327–328 (1955) (holding that two suits were not “based on
the same cause of action,” because “[t]he conduct presently
complained of was all subsequent to” the prior judgment and it
“cannot be given the effect of extinguishing claims which did not
even then exist and which could not possibly have been sued upon in
the previous case”). This is for good reason: Events that occur
after the plaintiff files suit often give rise to new “[m]aterial
operative facts” that “in themselves, or taken in conjunction with
the antecedent facts,” create a new claim to relief. Restatement
(Second) §24, Comment f , at 203; 18 J. Moore, D.
Coquillette, G. Joseph, G. Vairo, & C. Varner, Federal Practice
§131.22[1], p. 131–55, n. 1 (3d ed. 2019) (citing cases where
“[n]ew facts create[d a] new claim”).

															This principle takes on particular force in the
trademark context, where the enforceability of a mark and
likelihood of confusion between marks often turns on extrinsic
facts that change over time. As Lucky Brand points out, liability
for trademark infringement turns on marketplace realities that can
change dramatically from year to year. Brief for Petitioners 42–45.
It is no surprise, then, that the Second Circuit held that Marcel’s
2011 Action claims were not barred by the 2005 Action. By the same
token, the 2005 Action could not bar Lucky Brand’s 2011
defenses.

															At bottom, the 2011 Action involved different
marks, different legal theories, and different conduct—occurring at
different times. Because the two suits thus lacked a “common
nucleus of operative facts,” claim preclusion did not and could not
bar Lucky Brand from asserting its settlement agreement defense in
the 2011 Action.

															III

															Resisting this conclusion, Marcel points to
treatises and this Court’s cases, arguing that they support a
version of “defense preclusion” doctrine that extends to the facts
of this case. Brief for Respondent 24–26. But these authorities do
no such thing. As an initial matter, regardless of what those
authorities might imply about “defense preclusion,” none of them
describe scenarios applicable here. Moreover, we doubt that these
authorities stand for anything more than that traditional claim- or
issue - preclusion principles may bar defenses raised in a
subsequent suit—principles that, as explained above, do not bar
Lucky Brand’s release defense here.

															Take, for example, cases that involve either
judgment enforcement or a collateral attack on a prior judgment. Id. , at 26–35. In the former scenario, a party takes action
to enforce a prior judgment already issued against another; in the
latter, a party seeks to avoid the effect of a prior judgment by
bringing a suit to undo it. If, in either situation, a different
outcome in the second action “would nullify the initial judgment or
would impair rights established in the initial action,” preclusion
principles would be at play. Restatement (Second) §22(b), at 185;
Wright & Miller §4414. In both scenarios, courts simply apply
claim preclusion or issue preclusion to prohibit a claim or defense
that would

															attack a previously decided claim.[ 3 ] But these principles do not preclude
defendants from asserting defenses to new claims, which is
precisely what Marcel would have us do here.

															In any event, judgment-enforcement and
collateral-attack scenarios are far afield from the circumstances
of this case. Lucky Brand’s defense in the 2011 Action did not
threaten the judgment issued in the 2005 Action or, as Marcel
argues, “achieve the same practical result” that the
above-mentioned principles seek to avoid. Brief for Respondent
31–32. Indeed, while the judgment in the 2005 Action plainly
prohibited Lucky Brand from using “Get Lucky,” it did not do the
same with respect to Lucky Brand’s continued, standalone use of its
own marks containing the word “Lucky”—the only conduct at issue in
the 2011 Action. Put simply, Lucky Brand’s defense to new claims in
the 2011 Action did not risk impairing the 2005 judgment.

															Nor do cases like Beloit v. Morgan , 7 Wall. 619 (1869), aid Marcel. See Brief for
Respondent 32–33. To be sure, Beloit held that a defendant
in a second suit over bonds “of the same issue” was precluded from
raising a defense it had not raised in the first suit. 7 Wall., at
620. But the Court there explained that the judgment in the first
suit “established conclusively the original validity of the
securities described in the bill, and the liability of the town to
pay them.” Id. , at 623. In other words, by challenging the
validity of all bonds of the same issue, the defense in the second
suit would have threatened the validity of the judgment in the
first suit. The same cannot be said of the defense raised in the
2011 Action vis-à-vis the judgment in the 2005 Action.

															*  *  *

															At bottom, Marcel’s 2011 Action challenged
different conduct—and raised different claims—from the 2005 Action.
Under those circumstances, Marcel cannot preclude Lucky Brand from
raising new defenses. The judgment of the Second Circuit is
therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings
consistent with this opinion.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 See Complaint for
Injunctive Relief and Trademark Infringement in No. 1:11–cv–05523
(SDNY), Doc. 1, ¶15 (“Despite the entry of the [2005 Action
judgment], [Lucky Brand] ha[s] continued to willfully
. . . infringe [Marcel’s] GET LUCKY mark by using the
Lucky Brand marks in the identical manner and form and on the same
goods for which [it] w[as] found liable for infringement”); id. , ¶20 (“Despite the entry of the” 2005 Action judgment,
Lucky Brand has “continued its uninterrupted and willful use of the
Lucky Brand marks and any other trademarks including the word
‘Lucky’ ”). 2 There may be good reasons
to question any application of claim preclusion to defenses. It has
been noted that in suits involving successive claims against the
same defendant, courts often “assum[e] that the defendant may raise
defenses in the second action that were not raised in the first,
even though they were equally available and relevant in both
actions.” Wright & Miller §4414. This is because “[v]arious
considerations, other than actual merits, may govern” whether to
bring a defense, “such as the smallness of the amount or the value
of the property in controversy, the difficulty of obtaining the
necessary evidence, the expense of the litigation, and [a party’s]
own situation.” Cromwell v. County of Sac , 94 U.S.
351 , 356 (1877). Here, however, this Court need not determine
when (if ever) applying claim preclusion to defenses may be
appropriate, because a necessary predicate—identity of claims—is
lacking. 3 One might ask: If any
preclusion of defenses (under the claim-preclusion rubric) requires
identity of claims in two suits, how could the second similar suit
have avoided standard claim preclusion in the first place?
Different contexts may yield different answers. In a
judgment-enforcement context, the answer may be that claim
preclusion applies only “to a final judgment rendered in an action separate from that in which the doctrine is asserted.” 18 J.
Moore, D. Coquillette, G. Joseph, G. Vairo, & C. Varner,
Federal Practice §131.31[1], p. 131–116 (3d ed. 2019) (emphasis
added). Thus—although claim preclusion does apply to a later,
standalone suit seeking relief that could have been obtained in the
first—it “is not applicable to . . . efforts to obtain
supplemental relief in the original action, or direct attacks on
the judgment.” Ibid (footnote deleted) . The upshot is
that—even if a court deems the underlying core of operative facts
to be the same—a plaintiff in that circumstance is not precluded
from enforcing its rights with respect to continuing wrongful
conduct.

Summary:
Lucky Brand Dungarees, Inc. v. Marcel Fashions Group, Inc. (2020):

The Supreme Court ruled that Lucky Brand was not barred from raising a new defense in a later lawsuit against Marcel Fashions Group, as the two suits did not share the same claim for relief, and the defense had not been fully litigated in the earlier suit. The Court emphasized that claim preclusion requires identity of claims in both suits, and the defense must have been available and relevant in both actions to be precluded.