Signatory Joinder Agreement Made Easy

Signatory joinder agreement

joinder and intervention are both ways that third parties could get into a lawsuit joinder is done by the plaintiff or defendant himself who wishes to pull in someone else to the litigation for example retail R Us sues distribution mania a distribution contra company for a faulty product but distribution mainly has an indemnity clause from its manufacturer we build it Corp indemnity basically means that we build that will pay for all of the claims against distribution mania relating to the faulty product when we tell our us sooths distribution mania distribution mania will turn around and pull we build a Corp into the lawsuit because they and not distribution mania will have an interest in the litigation the intervention on the other hand is done by a third party itself a third party sitting on the sidelines might realize that it has a lot at stake in a particular litigation and that its interests are not being adequately represented it will then seek to enter the lawsuit for example two parties have a suit they have a dispute relating to the constitutional validity or scope of a statute the government has an interest in protecting the statutes and in the proper interpretation thereof and may seeks to intervene in the litigation to ensure that the court has the benefits of its views and what the statute actually means and why it's constitutional sometimes joinder is mandatory rule 19 says that where the court cannot possibly grant the victorious party complete release because someone who is absent from the case one has a tangible financial legal or financial or legal interest in the litigation to will be prejudiced by not being part of the litigation initially or three could sue after the fact and gain an alternative and inconsistent judgment if you have any one of those three that party must be joined into the lawsuit unless doing so is impossible such as because the court doesn't have personal jurisdiction there would be an improper venue with relating with relation to that person person or doing so would deprive the court of jurisdiction over other parties such as they feed by defeating subject matter jurisdiction in a diversity case would break complete diversity for example rule 19 B said that when joined their evidence and an indispensable party is not feasible the court will weigh various factors in deciding whether to dismiss the suit or allow it to continue with the indispensable party those factors are that the court will consider to decide whether or not to allow the case to continue one the extent of the potential prejudice against the absent party or any of the present parties to the extent to which the prejudice can be mitigated the court can do something to prevent the prejudice from happening it's not going to dismiss the suit three whether a judgement and the absence of that party will be adequate for the present parties we want to make sure that those in the lawsuit will be able to get the relief that they want and if the private the absent party being absent will prevent that from happening it's a big problem therefore whether dismissing the case the case on accounts of the an account of the absent party will prevent the plaintiff from getting his day in court sometimes dismissing the case here will prevent the plaintiff from filing anywhere and then the plaintiff won't be able to get at the relief that requires or have it addressed by any court where an indispensable party cannot be brought into the suit it is the responsibility of the parties to state why in the pleadings they can't simply ignore the indispensable party they have to talk about it in the pleadings that's rule 19 rule 20 discusses permissive joinder basically two people may join as plaintiffs if their claims arise that are the same transaction or occurrence in common questions of law in fact will predominate over the litigation similarly two people may join as defendants if the claims asserted against both of them are and arising but if the claims asserted against both of them arise out of the same transaction or occurrence and common questions of law and facts will predominate over the litigation with regard to both each individual claim must be the mat was must be within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the court if in a diversity case for example the defendant tries to bring in a co-defendant but the plaintiffs claims against the would-be co-defendant are not 75,000 $1 or the would-be co-defendant is from the same state as the plaintiff the defendant cannot join the co-defendant until into the litigation but if there's an interesting rule here with regard to supplemental jurisdiction you might have asked why the case wouldn't be available to the plaintiff on though on diversity jurisdiction using supplemental jurisdiction we've showed you might have thought we would be able to bring third parties into the litigation iossef diction but plaintiffs in diversity cases typically may not use supplemental jurisdiction to bring in non non diverse defendants similarly if for some reason the defendant wants to bring in a co-defendant as another example you generally cannot use supplemental jurisdiction to bring in a new defendant supplemental jurisdiction is available to defendants to bring in a new plaintiff and and into everyone and arising under cases again this restriction only applies in diversity cases it's a it's pretty nitty-gritty and I would imagine most professors won't care very much about it for the purposes of your class that was rule 20 joinder under Rule 14 is quite different it says that the then the defendant can bring in a third party as its defendant and parenthetically this is sometimes called imp leader dokin if you don't confuse in cleaner with interpleader which we're going to discuss later in pleaders a type of joinder defined by rule 14 implead or is something completely different don't allow yourself to be confused the defendant actor acting under Rule 14 is known as the third party plaintiff he's going to function as a plaintiff against the new defendant in our in our previous hypo this is retail or US distribution mania and we built a corp distribution mania is the defendant as against retail or us but as a plaintiff or more accurately a third party plaintiff against we built a corp rule 14 says that the third party plaintiff must file a complaint and a summons against the third party defendant just as if the third party plaintiff were a true paint plaintiff that is the defendant must file a complaint and a summons against the new defendant the third party defendant to take advantage of rule 14 the defendant must file its complaint within 14 days of filing its answer against the original plaintiff or with permission of the court thereafter the third party defendant functions typically J as any other defendant would but there are two big exceptions in which the third party defendant does not act like a typical defendant first the third party defendant can make some claims that a regular defendant could not second we ignore the third party defendant when assessing some of the rules relating to jurisdiction we'll go over both of those first the third party defendant has the right to raise claims against the original plaintiff that a normal defendant typically would not be able to raise the general rule is that a person cannot raise someone else's claims if you have a contract dispute I can't serve as a plaintiff against that against the would-be defendant on your behalf you have to raise the claim yourself but the third party defendant can stand in the shoes of the defendant to make claims against the plaintiff let's say that the contract between we tale R Us and distribution mania was drawn up in the back of a napkin and it just makes no sense by hypothesis there's no contract if there is no contract that meets here laura's can't sue in a breach of contract theory the distribution mania the third party that has no interest in the case because it has an indemnification clause doesn't bother to raise that defense after all it doesn't really care about the case that much we built a Corp inherits all of the affirmative defenses that once belonged to distribution mania even though they've been waived remember distribution mainly has already filed that's answer and it waived it by failing to raise that of that affirmative defense nevertheless we we built a Corp can raise that defense and in its answer it can argue that the contract between retail heiress and distribution mania was void second the other exception to the general rule regarding third party defendants we ignore third party defendants when assessing some of the rules relating to jurisdiction and I'll give you two examples one the third party defendant cannot destroy diversity now this is different from from typical typical joinder under rules 19 and 20 so if would be tailor SME built a corporate or per ated in the same state and are thus not diverse parties the defendant that is a third party plaintiff can nevertheless bring in the third party defendant using supplemental jurisdiction again supplemental jurisdiction is going to be available here we want right we're not trying to bring in a new plaintiff we're bringing in the third party defendant the fact that the third party defendant is not completely diverse from the defendant or perhaps from the plaintiff himself it doesn't really matter it's not going to destroy diversity jurisdiction number two we do not take the third party defendant into account when assessing venue there's some other rules here relate to jurisdiction which really get nitty-gritty and I'm going to assume that you professor is not going to get into them but if they do we'll be sure to listen up because we're not going through all of them now we're going to discuss counterclaims in a moment for now a counterclaim is a claim that the defendant makes against the plaintiffs essentially for the purposes of the character claim the plaintiff becomes a defendant and the defendant becomes a plaintiff and rule 14 can make litigation very messy it also gives law professors a lot of fun we'll discuss a couple examples and the point I want to make is to show how litigations you can just grow out of control using rule 14 if a defendant makes a counterclaim against the plaintiff the plaintiff becomes a defendant and can now use rule 14 as if you were a defendant that means that the plaintiff can now bring in a third party defendant and that the plaintiff is going to be acting against the defendant and against the third party defendant directly but the third party defendant has all the rules of a third party defendant not a defendant makes things rather tricky any third party defendant whether abided by the plaintiff or by the defendant can pre-commit can add his own parties using rule 20 rule 19 or rule 14 so the third party defendant can bring in plenty of new parties a typical litigation party a versus party be using the rules of joint are particularly rule 14 in rule 19 and 20 as well can transfer a versus B and to something that's got more complete mess and a lot professors like to give you messes on your law school exams that might be difficult even to know who the plaintiff and who the defendants are once you're all done with effects if you get quiet if you get a question like this obviously we can't go through every example they get very complicated you really need to see them on paper and that's my recommendation draw it out read the question very slowly don't rush through it because you're going to get it wrong if you do I know there's a time pressure but this is the only way to get the question right read through it very slowly draw a map makes you a tenth off' i the plaintiff in the defendant because those are very important parties and when you bring in new parties through joinder particularly through rule 14 identify so on your paper if you have a third party defendant be sure to mark the third party defendant because the rules might be different with relation to that third party defendant the other party's rules 14 and 20 are there precisely because we want to give the parties a lot of power to structure the litigation sometimes even taking the litigation out of the hands of the plaintiff typically the master of the litigation why do we do this it's to ensure that as many claims relating the Trin to relating to the transaction that issue are litigated at once judicial efficiency better to have a very complicated proceeding that to have many different courts assessing the same facts and the same questions all over the country there's one more rule that you need to know regarding joinder rule 21 that says that it says that if an improper party was joined in the action any party can ask that improperly joined party to be dismissed rule 21 also says that a court can dismiss an improperly joined party on its own even without requests from one of the other point of the parties the court has authority to dismiss it improperly during party at any time in the litigation so if the parties go too far in bringing in a whole bunch of unnecessary parties and make things unduly complicated beyond what the court should they have to address in a single litigation the court can take care of that itself and that should answer some of your questions about why we allow these very permissive rules relating to jointer finally intervention rule 24 it allows third parties to intervene and interpret in a pending lawsuit on their own without or not without an existing party bringing them in 24 a provides for intervention as a matter of Rights by virtue of the intervenor that proposed new party having won a direct substantial and legally cognizable interest in the suit two interests that may be prepared by not allowing him to intervene such as through a collateral estoppel res judicata or other means and three and you need all three that is in that is interest in being is not being adequately represented by the parties perhaps because the interests of the litigants do not align with the interests of the intervenor again the potential intervening party who wants to intervene by right under 24 a has to have a direct substantial and legally cognizable interests that is it that his interest may be impaired by not allowing them to intervene and that is interest not being adequately adequately represented in the lawsuit because some of the parties have differing interests if the intervener can show all three he's in the court and no party can keep him out rule 4 rule 24 B allows for discretionary intervention for people who have a Claver defense that shares common questions of law or fact if allowing the intervention will not unduly delay the litigation or prejudice the original parties again the standard standard is a common question of law or fact if you have that even if you don't meet the three-part test that we had for 24 a 24 a you can get in but it's discretionary and the big question we're going to be looking at is whether the intervention will unduly delay the litigation or prejudice another party