Misjoinder of parties happens when a lawsuit lumps together plaintiffs or defendants whose claims don’t actually belong in the same case. The good news for anyone caught in one of these cases: Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21 says misjoinder is never, on its own, a reason to dismiss the whole lawsuit.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 21 – Misjoinder and Nonjoinder of Parties The court fixes the party problem and the rest of the case moves on.
When Are Parties Properly Joined?
To see misjoinder clearly, start with the rule it breaks. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20 lets multiple parties appear in the same lawsuit only when two conditions are both met. The claims involving those parties have to grow out of the same event or a connected series of events, and they have to share at least one legal or factual question in common.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 20 – Permissive Joinder of Parties
Misjoinder is what you have when one or both of those conditions is missing. Say a delivery driver rear-ends you in March, and then in September your employer fires you for reasons you believe are illegal. Suing both the driver’s company and your former employer in a single complaint would be misjoinder. The two disputes share no common event, and the legal questions are entirely different. The lawsuit is over-inclusive: someone is in it who procedurally shouldn’t be.
Most state court systems use rules closely modeled on the federal framework, so the same two-part test generally applies in state court as well.
A Quick Note on Misjoinder vs. Nonjoinder
Misjoinder and nonjoinder sound alike and get confused constantly, but they’re opposite problems with very different consequences. Misjoinder means the wrong party is in the case. Nonjoinder, governed by Rule 19, means a required party is missing from it.3Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 19 – Required Joinder of Parties If a missing party is treated as indispensable and cannot be added, the court may have to dismiss the whole case. Misjoinder never produces that outcome. It gets corrected; it doesn’t kill the lawsuit.
How Courts Fix Misjoinder
Rule 21 gives courts broad authority to fix party problems at any point in the litigation. The court can act on a motion from one of the parties or on its own, and it can act at any stage, from the opening pleadings through trial. Whatever the court does, it has to do “on just terms,” which means weighing fairness to everyone involved before ordering a remedy.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 21 – Misjoinder and Nonjoinder of Parties
Two remedies do the work.
Dropping the Misjoined Party
The simplest fix is dropping the misjoined party. The court removes that party and their claims from the lawsuit, and the remaining parties continue as if the dropped party had never been included. This is the usual choice when the misjoined claims are unrelated to the core dispute and there’s no reason to keep them alive in a companion case.
If you’re the party whose claims get dropped, know that this is not a ruling on the merits. Your claims aren’t being decided against you. But there’s a practical trap: the statute of limitations keeps running. Courts have held that dropping a party for misjoinder doesn’t pause the limitations clock for the time the claims were pending in the original case. If much time has passed since the original filing, you may have a short window to refile independently before your claims expire.
Severing the Claims Into a New Case
The second remedy is severance. Instead of simply removing the misjoined party, the court splits their claims off into a brand-new, independent lawsuit with its own case number and its own timeline.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 21 – Misjoinder and Nonjoinder of Parties Severance is the better outcome when the claims themselves are valid and worth pursuing but just don’t belong alongside the original case.
For the affected party, severance is gentler than dropping. Because the claims continue as an ongoing case rather than disappearing, the statute of limitations concern is less acute. The tradeoff is cost: the new case may require its own filing fees, new service of process, and a fresh round of pretrial proceedings.
Why Misjoinder Matters in Federal Removal Cases
Misjoinder usually looks like a procedural housekeeping issue. In one setting it’s more than that. Federal courts can hear lawsuits between citizens of different states when the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1332 – Diversity of Citizenship; Amount in Controversy Defendants often prefer federal court and will try to remove a case there when the parties are diverse. Plaintiffs who want to stay in state court sometimes respond by adding a defendant from their own state, which destroys the complete diversity federal jurisdiction requires.
If a federal court concludes that the extra defendant was joined specifically to defeat diversity, and the claims against that defendant don’t satisfy Rule 20, the court can disregard that party’s citizenship for jurisdictional purposes. It drops or severs the misjoined party under Rule 21 and then reassesses diversity among the remaining parties.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 21 – Misjoinder and Nonjoinder of Parties In this setting, misjoinder decides which courthouse hears your case.
How to Raise a Misjoinder Objection
If you spot a misjoinder problem, file a motion asking the court to drop the improperly joined party or sever the claims. Rule 21 lets the court act at any stage, but raising the issue early matters. It avoids wasted discovery costs and keeps the case from building around a party who shouldn’t be there in the first place.
A strong motion does three things. It identifies the specific party or claim that fails the joinder test. It explains, point by point, why the claims don’t arise from the same event or share a common legal or factual question. And it asks for a specific remedy, drop or sever. A vague objection that just asserts “misjoinder” without walking through Rule 20’s two-part test is unlikely to succeed.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 20 – Permissive Joinder of Parties
One timing point worth knowing. Unlike some procedural defenses that are waived if you don’t raise them right away, misjoinder can be raised at any time during the litigation. But waiting until the eve of trial will test the court’s patience and can weigh against you in the “just terms” analysis Rule 21 requires.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 21 – Misjoinder and Nonjoinder of Parties