Rule 2317.Successful Party not Required to Enter into Recognizance or Undertaking.

Sometimes an interpleaded claimant is never served. Rule 2316 still lets the winning party collect, and this rule keeps the court from attaching strings to that recovery. The court may not require the party ultimately found entitled to recover to enter into a recognizance or undertaking to interplead with any unserved claimant who later asserts against the defendant a claim set out in the interpleader petition.

Nor may the court require that party to indemnify the defendant for any liability or loss if the unserved claimant succeeds on such a claim against the defendant. The protection is specific: it concerns claimants who were not served and the claims described in the defendant’s petition.

The rule fits with Rule 2307(b), under which a defendant that complies with the payment order is discharged only as to the plaintiff and to interpleaded claimants who were served. Serving every claimant under Rule 2308 is how the defendant secures a complete discharge.