Rule 14.Third-Party Practice

Rule 14.01 lets a defending party, as third-party plaintiff, serve a summons and complaint on a nonparty who is or may be liable to it for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim — the classic example is a contractual indemnity claim against a party who agreed to cover the defendant’s liability. No leave of court is needed if the third-party complaint is filed within 10 days after the original answer; after that, the third-party plaintiff must seek the court’s permission. Since Tennessee’s adoption of comparative fault largely eliminated joint tort liability among defendants, Rule 14 now matters most in cases involving a contractual right to indemnity or contribution, rather than the joint-tortfeasor claims that once drove much third-party practice.

The third-party defendant must raise its defenses to the third-party plaintiff’s claim under Rule 12 and any counterclaims or cross-claims under Rule 13, and it may also assert against the original plaintiff any defense the third-party plaintiff has, plus any claim arising from the same transaction or occurrence as the plaintiff’s claim. The plaintiff, in turn, may assert a claim directly against the third-party defendant arising from that same transaction or occurrence, and the third-party defendant must then respond to that claim the same way it responds to the third-party plaintiff’s own claim.

Any party may move to strike the third-party claim or to have it severed or tried separately, giving the court a way to prevent an indemnity or contribution dispute from complicating or delaying the trial of the plaintiff’s underlying claim. Rule 14.01 also lets a third-party defendant, in turn, implead a further nonparty under the same procedure when that fourth party may be liable for the claim asserted against the third-party defendant. Rule 14.02 lets a plaintiff who has had a counterclaim asserted against it use this same third-party procedure to bring in a new party, on the same footing as a defendant would.