Also known as: non-party · nonparties
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A person or entity that is not named as a party in a legal proceeding. The status determines whether the individual or organization may be served with process, compelled to provide discovery, bound by judgments, or protected by procedural privileges that apply only to outsiders.
Natalie Norris served a deposition notice on Nimbus Cloud that described five categories of maintenance records with reasonable particularity. Nimbus Cloud designated its records custodian to testify on its behalf. The custodian appeared and answered questions about information known or reasonably available to the company.
Nadia Novak financed and directed every strategic decision in an earlier suit brought by a supplier against Norton Bank. After the supplier lost on the validity of a fee schedule, Novak filed her own refund action asserting the identical issue. The court treated Novak as bound because she had assumed control over the prior action in which she held a direct financial interest.
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Nina Nielsen, a shareholder who had not participated in an earlier SEC enforcement action, sued Parklane Hosiery for damages arising from the same securities violation. Nielsen sought to preclude the company from relitigating the violation finding. The court examined fairness factors before deciding whether a nonparty could use the prior judgment offensively.
The government introduced a codefendant's confession that directly implicated Nathaniel Newman even though the codefendant would not testify. Newman had no opportunity to cross-examine the absent declarant. The court held that the introduction of the statement violated Newman's confrontation rights because the codefendant remained a nonparty to Newman's trial.
Naomi Norton and other environmental plaintiffs challenged a federal regulation that they claimed would harm endangered species abroad. The organizations had no members who had visited the affected areas. The court dismissed the suit because the nonparty organizations failed to show concrete and particularized injury to themselves or their members.
Nancy Nelson, a nonparty advocacy group, accepted large corporate contributions to fund issue advertisements that mentioned federal candidates. The statute limited such spending by national party committees but left nonparty groups unregulated. The Court upheld the distinction because the group operated independently of any party structure.
Yes. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(c)(2) permits service by any person who is at least eighteen years old and not a party to the action. The rule contains no requirement that the server be neutral, licensed, or unrelated to a party beyond the prohibition on party service itself.
A party must tender the statutory attendance fee and mileage at the time of service whenever a subpoena commands a nonparty's attendance at a deposition. The requirement applies unless the subpoena issues on behalf of the United States or one of its agencies.
No. Binding effect requires both a direct financial or proprietary interest and actual control over the litigation. Mere funding or monitoring without strategic control is insufficient to create privity.
Yes. Rule 14(a)(5) expressly authorizes a third-party defendant to bring in a nonparty who may be liable to it for all or part of the claim against the third-party defendant.
Yes. Under the Uniform Mediation Act a nonparty participant may refuse to disclose and may prevent others from disclosing that participant's own mediation communications.
…the Executive can dispel jurisdiction where it previously existed (by either conceding the merits or by pointing out that nonparty agencies would not be bound by a ruling), whereas a plaintiff cannot retroactively create jurisdiction based on postcomplaint litigation conduct. But any defendant, not just the…