FDCC Quarterly, a publication of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel, has published an article on the impact of the relatively recent decisions of United States Supreme Court in Iqual and Twombly.
This is how the authors summarize the holdings of the two decisions:
Together, Iqbal and Twombly held that, to comply with the pleading requirements of Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a complaint must allege well-pleaded factual allegations (and not legal conclusions or bare recitations of the elements of a cause of action) that if presumed true ‘plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.’ Iqbal made clear this test should apply to all civil complaints. [Footnotes omitted.]
The 27-page article explores the decisions in some detail and then discusses the case law that have interpreted them. You have free access to the entire article, titled "Iqbal and Twombly –Reinvigorating the Substance of Rule 8," by clicking here. I note that the authors did not mention that Rule 8 addresses affirmative defenses and not just complaints and thus one would assume that Iqual and Twombly would apply equal to answers that set forth affirmative defenses.