Parties Versus Claims

Parties Versus Claims

A lawsuit with more than two litigants raises two joinder questions that students habitually run together. One asks who may be in the case; the other asks what the people in the case may claim against one another. Rule 20 answers the first. Rules 18 and 13 answer the second, and they do so only for parties who are already properly joined.¹

Rule 20 conditions the joinder of plaintiffs on two things. Their rights to relief, whether asserted jointly, severally, or in the alternative, must arise out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences,² and a question of law or fact common to all plaintiffs must arise in the action.³ Federal courts require both, and neither alone sustains joinder.⁴

Rule 18(a) imposes no comparable condition. A party seeking relief from an opposing party may join with the original claim any additional claims it has against that opponent, and unlike Rule 20(a), the rule has no common transaction or occurrence requirement.⁵ A single plaintiff's claims against a single defendant may rest on one historical event or on several unrelated ones, which makes Rule 18(a) the ultimate in permissiveness.⁶ Suppose Volt sues Wright for negligence after a collision, and the two then exchange words and a fight ensues. Rule 18(a) lets Volt add his assault claim to the same action, and it would let him add an unrelated claim for libel, trespass, or anything else.⁷

The permission does not stop at the original complaint. Rule 13 lets a defending party assert claims back against a party who has claimed against it.⁸ Rule 13(g), however, allows crossclaims only when they arise out of the same transaction or occurrence as the main claim, so Ellsworth could not assert an unrelated contract claim against Wright as a crossclaim if it were the only claim she had against him. Once she asserts a proper crossclaim against Wright, Rule 18(a) lets her add the unrelated contract claim.⁹

The difference shows when a stranger tries to come in. Suppose Pell, who had nothing to do with the collision, holds a libel claim against Wright and asks to join Volt's suit as a co-plaintiff. Rule 18(a) gives Pell nothing, because it operates among parties already in the case and Pell is not yet one.¹⁰ Rule 20 governs Pell's entry, and Pell's libel claim shares neither a transaction or series nor a common question with Volt's negligence and assault claims. Joinder fails.

Rule 20 is satisfied when the plaintiffs' claims share a factual and legal core. Morisot and Cassatt sue Van Gogh and Renoir over the same fire. All their claims arise out of the fire, so the same-transaction test is clearly met. Both plaintiffs must prove that Pissarro's acts caused the fire in order to recover from Van Gogh and Renoir on their respective theories, which likely supplies the common question. So long as some common question exists, joinder is proper, even though other issues, such as each plaintiff's damages, will differ.¹¹

On an exam, start by identifying who is asserting the new claim, plaintiff or defendant, and in what posture. That tells you which rule applies.¹² If the question is whether a new person may enter the case, apply both Rule 20 tests. If the question is whether someone already in the case may add a claim against an opponent, apply Rule 18(a), and remember that a crossclaim must first satisfy Rule 13(g).

Rule 18(a) is also permissive. A party with unrelated claims against an opponent may join them but need not, and where the claims are completely unrelated, separate suits remain permissible under res judicata analysis as well as under Rule 18(a).¹³ The rule's breadth can seem foolish until it is read with Rule 42(b), which lets the court order a separate trial of one or more separate issues or claims for convenience, to avoid prejudice, or to expedite and economize.¹⁴ Joinder of claims is therefore no longer rigidly restricted at the pleading stage. It has become a matter of the court's discretion in shaping the trial.¹⁵

The 1966 amendments drew the line between the two rules, and the problem they solved explains how Rule 20 is worded. In Federal Housing Administrator v. Christianson, a plaintiff held two promissory notes, with three persons liable on one and two of those same three liable on the other. The court severed the claims because no question of law or fact was common to both notes.¹⁶ That ruling assumed that the common question had to run to the claims joined rather than to the parties. The federal rules proceed on a different basis, abrogating the restrictions on joinder of claims and leaving the court's control to the trial stage.¹⁷ The amendments reworded Rule 20 to refer expressly to plaintiffs and to defendants, so its limits cannot even colorably be read to restrict claims, and they rewrote Rule 18 so that a party who has asserted a claim against an opposing party may join any other claims it has against that party.¹⁸ Rule 20's text still asks for a question common to all plaintiffs, not to all claims.¹⁹

The two-part party test contrasts with the looser inquiry that equity applied. Equity courts resolved joinder questions by asking what would render complete justice among all those whose interests were involved and avoid multiplicity of actions, and they treated even that liberal formula as a guide, not an absolute requirement.²⁰ Federal courts today ask a structured question, and both of its parts must be met.²¹

One limit applies to both rules. Authority under the Federal Rules to join a claim or a party does not give the court subject matter jurisdiction over it, and each claim must be analyzed for jurisdiction separately. At times a joinder rule will permit a claim that the court has no power to hear, a topic taken up below.²²