§ 25-320.Permissive joinder of defendants.

Section 25-320 sets the test for putting more than one defendant into a single Nebraska lawsuit. Two conditions have to be met together. First, the plaintiff’s right to relief against the defendants must arise out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences — whether the plaintiff is asserting that right jointly against them, severally against each, or in the alternative between them. Second, at least one question of law or fact common to all the defendants must arise in the case. Both parts matter: a shared event alone is not enough without a common question, and a common legal issue alone is not enough without a connection to the same underlying transaction.

This is a permissive rule, not a mandatory one. It tells a plaintiff who could join several defendants that doing so is allowed, not that it is required. That distinguishes it from section 25-318, which addresses parties who are so united in interest that they must be joined, and from section 25-323, which gives the court its own power to order necessary parties brought into a pending case regardless of what the plaintiff prefers.

A car accident with two drivers whose combined negligence caused a single collision is a familiar fit: the plaintiff’s claims against both drivers arise from the same occurrence, and the case will turn on common questions about how the accident happened. Section 25-320 lets the plaintiff sue both in one action instead of filing two separate lawsuits over the same event.