What Is a Mandatory Joinder in Law

In law, a link is the combination of two or more legal issues. Procedurally, a consolidation allows multiple issues to be heard in a single hearing or negotiation and occurs when the issues or parties involved overlap sufficiently to make the process more efficient or fair. This helps courts avoid hearing the same facts multiple times or having the same parties come back to court separately for each of their disputes. The term is also used in the field of contracts to describe the accession of new parties to an existing agreement. The Federal Code of Civil Procedure No. 20 deals with permissive combination. The permissive combination allows multiple claimants to join a claim if each of their claims results from the same transaction or event and there is a common question of law or fact relating to the claims of all claimants. For example, several landowners may join forces to sue a plant for environmental runoff on their property. The permissive link is also appropriate for joining multiple defendants, as long as the same considerations as for joining multiple plaintiffs are met. This often happens in complaints about defective products; The plaintiff is suing the manufacturer of the final product and the manufacturers of any component.

The court must have personal jurisdiction over each defendant involved in the action. [2] In order for two or more persons to unite as co-plaintiffs or co-defendants in a dispute, they must normally have similar rights or obligations. At common law, a person can only be added as a claimant if that person, along with the other plaintiffs, is entitled to the full recovery. A person may only be included as a defendant if he or she is jointly and severally liable with the other defendants for the entire claim. In order to be more efficient, reduce costs and reduce litigation, modern legal practice does not follow the same principles. Permissive Union In modern law, a person who has no substantial interest in the subject matter of the dispute or in the relief sought is not an appropriate party and cannot be part of the claim. A correct party is one that can join the application, but whose omission does not prevent the court from hearing the case and resolving the dispute. An appropriate party can be added to a lawsuit through a process called permissive joinder. The intervention required of a person who is not an original party to a dispute, but whose presence in the claim is necessary for the dispute to continue.

This may be because, without that person, the court would not be able to fully compensate the existing parts, the person has an interest in the case that would not be protected if it were omitted, or would risk double jeopardy. A person whose involvement in a case is mandatory is called an indispensable party. The mandatory link applies in both criminal and civil matters. In criminal proceedings, mandatory combination refers to the combination of all known claims against an accused in a single indictment. Some jurisdictions, such as Tennessee and West Virginia, also require that the claim be derived from the same criminal settlement. Known offences that are not related as a separate charge in the same case cannot be used as a basis for subsequent prosecutions. Consolidation of claims presupposes that the court has jurisdiction over the subject-matter of each of the new claims and that consolidation of claims is never mandatory. A party suing for breach of contract may file their personal injury claim at a later date if they wish.

However, if the claims relate to the same facts, the plaintiff may be excluded from the subsequent assertion of claims by the doctrine of res judicata, for example: If a plaintiff commences an assault suit and the matter is closed, the plaintiff cannot subsequently prosecute for the same incident. The parties` membership is also divided into two categories: voluntary membership and mandatory membership. The relationship in civil law falls into two categories: the combination of claims and the combination of parties. Membership may be mandatory in some cases. Coercive union requires the union of a person who must become a party to a dispute with others because his cooperation is necessary for a just decision of the case. A plaintiff who brings multiple actions on a related matter must follow the accession procedure or risk that both actions will be excluded from a hearing because they constitute a plurality of actions. Similar proceedings are available to defendants, since even in such a case, binding counterclaims must be formulated. n. the combination of several disputes or several parties in the same dispute, provided that the legal issues and the factual situation are the same for all plaintiffs and defendants.

Intervention presupposes that (1) one of the parties to one of the disputes submits a claim for consolidation of claims and the parties in a single case; (2) Notice must be given to all parties; (3) A hearing must be held before a judge to show why the intervention does not harm any of the parties to the existing dispute; and (4) a decision of the judge authorizing joinder. The link may be mandatory if a person necessary for a fair outcome was not included in the original application, or it may be admissible if the joinder of cases is only a matter of convenience or economy. (See: Mandatory login, Bad connection) Membership is not always favoured by modern court rules and statutes. Some laws do not allow the combination of means requiring different locations. Moreover, the different statutes of accession generally provide that contradictory pleas – i.e. those which refute or reject each other – cannot be joined in the same action. For example, in a single action, a plaintiff cannot invoke a contract as valid and treat the same contract as void. However, contractual and tortious actions may be combined into a single action if they arise from the same event or transaction and are not contradictory.