§ 9-2-5.Prosecution of two simultaneous actions for same cause against same party prohibited; election; pendency of former action as defense; exception

Suing the same person twice over the same dispute wastes the court’s time and the defendant’s money defending duplicate cases. This section stops it by prohibiting a plaintiff from prosecuting two actions at once for the same cause of action against the same party.

The remedy depends on timing. File two suits on the same claim at the same time, and the defendant can make the plaintiff choose which one to pursue. File a second suit while an earlier one on the same claim is still pending, and the pendency of the first suit becomes a defense to the second — the defendant can get the later case dismissed on that ground alone.

Subsection (b) carves out attachment proceedings. A plaintiff who first attaches a defendant’s property and later manages to serve the defendant personally doesn’t have to elect between the property proceeding and the personal action, and neither does a plaintiff who obtains an attachment while a personal action is already pending. The judgment against the person, though, has to note that it covers the same matter as the property proceeding.