Countersignature Joinder Agreement Made Easy

Signature joinder agreement

hi how're you doing my name is Jack price I'm a professor of Civil Procedure at University of Richmond School of Law my task right now is to help you tackle any joinder problem that comes along any joinder problem you may not even know what the word joinder means that's okay joinder is unfortunate it's too complicated because all it means is join but we're lawyers we can't do anything as simple as it might be so we add that d joinder just means join well what are we join we're joining one of two things either claims or parties so here's how it works a classic early say the most primitive lawsuit of all time one plaintiff Sue's one defendant for one claim that's it things get a little more complicated right one plaintiff Sue's one defendant for two claims or three claims there's a breach there's a fraud there's some sort of tort involved then you might have three claims but you might have multiple defendants one plaintiff brings three claims against three separate defendants then you have multiple plaintiffs joining in next thing you know it's a veritable party multiple plaintiffs multiple claims multiple defendants the Federal Rules are rather liberal not unlimited but they're rather liberal and when you can join all these separate claims or parties together into a single action what I'm going to help you do is figure out a way to determine whether or not all these things can be grouped into one the easiest way to do this is to separate out claims from parties okay we're going to use a similar task in sorting it out but will it start with claims so the best thing to do find a piece of scratch paper in the side of the book that you're working on or the test booklet or anything and diagram everything out I can't tell you how much that will help you I do it all the time students come in and ask me questions first thing I do is we pull out scrap paper I don't know if that makes me look not as sharp as I ought to but I can't do it without scrap paper I urge you to write it down when you see these claims you diagram them out with peas n DS and arrows so that primitive case that I just explained to you one p versus one D you write P versus D and then you write an arrow from the P over to the D okay that's all you're doing I want you to diagram it out every arrow is a claim so for instance if there's P versus D and there's two claims at breach of contract and a fraud claim it's P versus D with two arrows suppose the defendants invites some third party to join the lawsuit we'll talk about a little bit that with joinder of parties but the defendant invites some third party to join the lawsuit that's another arrow over to the third party make sure there is an arrow for every claim okay so once you've put the arrows out there then you have to label the arrows what am I talking about label the arrows for every arrow or scuse me for claims they're joined the federal rule uses a certain number of words to describe them so an ordinary claim they just call a claim okay that's boring other claims they call counterclaims cross claims employer claims okay so there's a couple different things going on here so for each arrow you label it again the primitive suit P versus D one arrow going across what do we call that just a straightforward claim okay suppose there's two arrows going across still one piece still one D but two arrows there I want you to label that multiple claims you can label the top one multiple the bottom one multiple but you need to acknowledge for yourself you've got multiple claims okay suppose that in this particular lawsuit P sues D but then D fires back a counterclaim that arrow going back from the defendant to the plaintiff I want you to write a label on that that says counterclaim okay suppose that a third party is brought in from outside P versus D versus another D the arrow going to that extra D call that an employer claim so you want to label all of these the one claim that I haven't mentioned yet is a cross claim suppose plaintiff Sue's two defendants two people have caused me harm not just one I'm suing them both then they decide to start suing each other that's called a cross claim so you've got a map of the lawsuit each claim represented by an arrow and each claim labeled as either a multiple claim or if it's the only claim not labeled at all except just claimed or labeled in Pleader claim or a cross claim or counterclaim once you've got it labeled then you apply your rules the rules for whether or not you can bring a multiple claim a counterclaim a cross claim or an inflator claim so let's work those work through those real quick first thing the most basic claim you can bring a claim guess what that's no surprise from the federal rules you could bring a single claim without multiple claims 1p vs. 1d but five or six different arrows running between running from the plaintiff to the defendant can you do that absolutely if a client ever asks you I have 25 different things I want to sue the defendant for can I do it yes you need to think someone might be tempted to say but are those related to each other doesn't matter the rules say you can bring as many claims as you want regardless of their love whether they're related now if you leave related claims off that multiple claims list you may suffer some preclusion problems later but that's not what we're going to get into right here so multiple claims the rule is if you got them you can bring them no problem it's an open door so what about cross excuse me counterclaims that's the arrow going back from the defendant on the to the plaintiff counterclaims are also permissible if a client ever says to you can I bring a counterclaim you can say yes without even thinking further and if the defendant said what you don't even know what the claim is you say I don't need to know the federal rules say you can always bring a counterclaim if you want to now that is the law of joinder all note as an asterisks right here that's the law of joinder doesn't mean you have subject matter jurisdiction you always need to figure that out separately but is the law joinder is concerned you can absolutely bring that counterclaim but for counterclaims there are certain instances where you must bring a counterclaim that's called a compulsory counterclaim if P sues D and D has a claim arising out of the same transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the plaintiff suit the defendant has to bring a counterclaim or else forfeit it for all time so if the client asks you can I bring a counterclaim your answer should be not only can you but sometimes you must okay sometimes you must so let's move to the next arrow that you see on your diagram let's say that's a cross claim it's where one defendant is suing another defendant by the way a cross claim could be one plaintiff suing another plaintiff or a third party defendant it can get as complicated as you want but cross claims are between parties on the same side of a particular V so our cross claim is permissible the key thing to remember in cross claims is the first cross-claim has to be related to the plaintiffs transaction or occurrence in other words the transaction or currents underlying the plaintiffs suit okay the first cross-claim excuse me after that it's no holds barred right no holds barred what do I mean by that it means after the first one's related the person who filed that first one can add on three or four more even if they're not related can add on seven or eight more even if they're not related where does it say that that is simply an application of the multiple claim rule that we talked about the beginning you can bring 25 separate claims against the other party that's the rule you can bring as many as you want but the one thing on cross claims is they have to do they have to be opened up with a related cross claim has to relate to the plaintiffs claim suppose the party responding to a cross claim has a ton of claims can he bring them yep how do I know that because that's a counterclaim against somebody anytime you're returning fire to somebody who just sued you whether you're a co-defendant being sued or a third party defendant being sued that's a counterclaim and what did I tell you about counterclaims you can always bring them although sometimes you must so even co-defendants sued on cross claims sometimes have to return fire but if they have a bunch of other extraneous claims they can throw those in the mix as well finally that arrow going to a third party defendant is that arrow permissible it's called an imp leader claim the key inquiry that you want to look at is whether or not that claim is essentially one for contribution or indemnity now the language of the federal rules say you can employ are alleging that they are responsible for some or all of the liability the plaintiff is intending to impose on you that's a little laborious okay how about this because it's the case in almost every employer action you are saying hey you you didn't get sued but you helped me commit this harm you need to join in the action so there will be another v added to the lawsuit and this other party will be added in so it's an extra claim with an extra v in it so along is the claims for contribution to a joint tortfeasor no problem federal will say that's okay now in addition to contribution you can also bring an indemnity claim what's an indemnity claim it's a claim against somebody who has agreed to insure you so a lot of times it's an insurance company but it could be anyone who says listen if anything goes wrong I'll cover the costs that's insurance right so if you're suing an insurance company or any insurance entity that's provided insurance or you're seeking contribution that arrow you can bring it finally what happens to that person who just got brought in well we know that person can respond with counterclaims of any sort they want because that's what the rule is for counterclaims and we know that the well the one thing I haven't mentioned yet is the plaintiff the plaintiff to that in pleaded defendant that third party defendant just dragged in the plaintiff is actually allowed to bring a claim against that party but only if it arises out of the transaction or occurrence that's underlies the plaintiffs original claims okay so you've diagrammed everything out you've got all these arrows you label them cross claim in Pleader claim counterclaim and then you apply the rules for cross claim in Pleader claim etc great you have just solved a joinder of claims issue but you may also have to tackle a joinder of parties issue so how do you do that you do it roughly the same way you've already diagrammed out the lawsuit you've got all the DS diagrammed out because you had to figure out cross claims you look at that same diagram and for each party in the lawsuit you need to know whether or not it is supported or permissible according to a federal rule so what exactly do you have to pay attention to you really only have to pay attention to two different things what I call stacked parties or third parties stacked parties or third parties again the primitive lawsuit P versus D one claim all right that is permissible under actually the most basic of federal rules it's almost implicit in the federal rules you probably couldn't find it statutorily explicit but rather implicit suppose however you say I want to sue two defendants not one in the same lawsuit two people beat me up at the bar and I want to sue them both I don't want to bring two separate lawsuits the federal rules say you can do that right so when you look at the diagram it's P versus D and D those DS are stacked what I just call stacked that sits in a line two or three or five or 10 on top of each other right it could have been a really bad Rao at the bar ten of these guys can be sued all at once whether you can stack all those defendants together or if a bunch of plaintiffs went together right it's a huge melee at the bar twenty-five plaintiffs want to sue 25 separate defendants can you do that yeah the Federals you can do that under the following conditions first the plaintiffs claim relief or the defendants face liability all arising out of the same transaction or occurrence right so a bar brawl it's perfect example all of the all of our claims or all of our potential liability arises from that crazy fight last week at the bar okay also the claims all have to involve not the claim excuse me the parties all have to seek relief or face liability involving common questions of law or fact common questions of law or fact so long as you got that and frankly it's really easy to show it's okay to have stacked parties so you've done your diagram if you see stacked parties you run your stacked party test alright next you look for third parties third parties is that in pleated party if you see an implanted party you do your third party test and I've already told you what that test is it's contribution or indemnity if you're bringing a contribution or indemnity claim no problem you've satisfied the third party test now the reason why I cover it here is because that employer claim you're adding a new claim and a new party so it's technically joinder of claim and joinder of party you're almost done one last thing one last thing just because jointers okay doesn't mean subject matter jurisdiction is okay and personal jurisdiction is okay I mentioned that before but students miss it all the time so we're not tackling smj or PJ in this episode but don't forget those can be relevant I wish you the best of luck tackling these joinder questions to the ground good luck to you