Rule 18.Joinder of claims and remedies

Section A gives Indiana litigants a broad joinder right. Anyone asserting a claim — whether as an original claim, a counterclaim, a cross-claim, or a third-party claim — can combine as many claims against a single opposing party as they have, regardless of whether those claims sound in law, in equity, or under a statute. The claims can be joined as independent demands, each standing on its own, or as alternatives, where a party is saying, in effect: give me relief under this theory, or if that doesn’t work, under this one instead. Nothing in the rule requires the claims to be related to each other or to arise from the same events — the only requirement is that they run against the same opposing party.

Section B addresses a narrower, older problem: some claims used to be off-limits until a party had already won a separate, earlier lawsuit. The rule does away with that sequencing requirement — a claim that once had to wait for a prior judgment can now be joined with the claim it depended on, in the same action. The rule gives one concrete example: a plaintiff can combine a claim for money owed with a claim to set aside a conveyance made to defraud them, without first having to win a judgment on the money claim and only then suing to unwind the fraudulent transfer. That said, joining the claims procedurally doesn’t change the underlying law — the court still has to award relief consistent with each party’s actual substantive rights, which may still mean resolving the claims in a particular order even though they were filed together.