PLEADING REQUIREMENTS FOR CLAIMS BY CONTRACTORS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT: APPLYING "TWOMBLY" AND "IQBAL" AFTER THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT'S DECISION IN "TODD CONSTRUCTION, L.P."

It has been over five years since the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, and over three years since its companion decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, yet the new pleading standard announced in those cases continues to confound jurists and practitioners at every level and field of the legal profession. In 2011, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit), in Todd Construction, L.P. v. United States, applied Twombly and Iqbal's pleading standard strictly to find that a contractor had failed to sufficiently state a claim based on negative performance evaluations it received from the government. This note argues that the Court of Federal Claims and boards of contract appeals should refrain from interpreting the Federal Circuit's recent opinion in Todd Construction, L.P. as increasing the requirements under Twombly and Iqbal for pleading most contractor claims against the Government.