Rule 1.236.Remedy for misjoinder

Rule 1.236 covers two distinct problems and treats them differently. On misjoined parties, the rule is emphatic: misjoinder is no ground for dismissal of the action. Instead, the court, on its own motion or a party's, may drop parties from the case, realign them according to their true interests, or sever a claim against an improperly joined party so it proceeds separately, all on whatever terms the situation makes just. The official Comment notes that no Iowa case law directly addresses a court's authority to realign parties, but federal courts have read the parallel federal rule to permit exactly this kind of realignment according to the parties' true interests, and Iowa's rule tracks that federal rule closely.

On misjoined actions — as opposed to misjoined parties — the rule's approach is procedural rather than substantive. The remedy is by motion. Once that motion is filed, the court either orders the misjoined causes docketed separately or strikes the causes that should be stricken, while always retaining at least one cause docketed in the original case. Before the court rules on the motion, the party whose pleading is under attack may withdraw any of the causes claimed to be misjoined, heading off the need for the court to decide the question at all.

Together, these two halves of Rule 1.236 mean that neither kind of misjoinder is fatal to a case. A misjoined party gets dropped, realigned, or severed out; a misjoined cause of action gets docketed separately or struck, with at least one cause always surviving in the original case.