Whether a plaintiff alleging economic injury must plead facts to support his theory of harm, as several circuits require, or whether a court may supplement conclusory allegations of economic harm with its own 'common sense' and 'experience'

QUESTION PRESENTED The Court long ago articulated the constitutional minimum a complaint must plead to demonstrate standing. But even after reiterating that plausibility standard in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016) and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2021), the courts of appeals have conflicting rulings on what constitutes “clearly ... allege[d] facts demonstrating” a concrete and particularized injuryin-fact, Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 338 (cleaned up), when applying these precedents to consumer class action pleadings that contain only conclusory allegations of injury to each plaintiff. When a complaint does not include factual allegations of injury, some circuits, including the Third and Ninth Circuits, have required dismissal. Here, the First Circuit took an entirely different tack, reversing a dismissal on those grounds, and holding plaintiffs did not need to plead any facts of actual economic harm because conclusory allegations of alleged “overpayment” were sufficient for the court to infer injury-in-fact for Article III standing. The question of what constitutes plausible facts versus speculative “inferences” for economic injury is a recurring issue in class actions in federal court. The question presented is: Whether a plaintiff alleging economic injury must plead facts to support his theory of harm, as several circuits require, or whether a court may supplement conclusory allegations of economic harm (i.e., but for alleged misrepresentations about a product’s safety, consumers would not have bought a product, would have paid less for it, or would have bought a cheaper ii alternative) by supplanting the lack of facts with its own “common sense” and “experience,” as the First Circuit here held?