Gibson Dunn Lawyers Describe How Ninth Circuit Has Muddied Waters of Article III Pleading Standard

Article  |  June 24, 2025

Law360

Writing in Law360 about how the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — the country’s busiest federal appellate circuit — has muddied the waters of the Article III pleading standard, partner Bradley J. Hamburger and associate Matt Aidan Getz note that district courts in the Ninth Circuit for years have applied “a defunct and especially forgiving pleading standard to questions of Article III standing” — a standard that “is out of step with multiple strands of U.S. Supreme Court precedent” and with “the approach taken in every other court of appeals.”

Furthermore, they say, with the Ninth Circuit’s conflicting signals on which pleading standard should apply adding to the confusion in the lower courts, the Ninth Circuit has become an “attractive forum for disputes that have no rightful place in federal court.”