Compulsory Joinder of Parties in Civil Actions

The plaintiff in a civil cause ordinarily is permitted to select the persons with whom he will litigate. The initial designation of parties to an action is made by the plaintiff, and if he chooses to sue B and not A,' that is ordinarily of no concern to B or to A or to the court. So also where the plaintiff without A as co-plaintiff sues B. Not always, however, is the plaintiff permitted unfettered choice in naming the parties to his lawsuit. On the one hand there are persons whose relationship to the situation in litigation is outside the range of permissible joinder, either as codefendants or as co-plaintiffs.

No court, for example, will permit a plaintiff to sue defendant B on one claim and, in the same suit, defendant C on a wholly unrelated and dissimilar claim. Nor will it permit two unrelated plaintiffs to sue a single defendant in one action where the liabilities alleged have utterly no factual relationship to each other. On the other hand, there are those persons whose presence before the court is "required," even though the original plaintiff would prefer them not there. In these realms of improper and required joinder of parties, the initial plaintiff is not the master of his case.

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