§14.5 Purpose and Procedure

• Jurisdiction: Washington

§14.5PURPOSE AND PROCEDURE

The purposes of and procedure under CR 14 and the corresponding federal rule are discussed below.

(1)Purpose: indemnification or contribution

Third-party practice is an option available to a defendant (or counterclaim defendant or third-party defendant) to join a third party when that third party may be liable to compensate, reimburse, or indemnify the defendant for the plaintiff's claim under circumstances arising out of the same set of facts that are the focus of the main action. Phillip A. Trautman, Joinder of Claims and Parties in Washington, 14 Gonz. L. Rev. 103, 120 (1978); see also Deutsch v. W. Coast Mach. Co., 80 Wn.2d 707, 718, 497 P.2d 1311 (1972) (CR 14(a) "affords a means of bringing in a third party who may be liable to the defendant by way of indemnity, subrogation, contribution and warranty, as well as in other situations"). CR 14's purpose is to "avoid delay and needless multiplicity of actions." Brown v. Spokane Cnty. Fire Prot. Dist. No. 1, 21 Wn.App. 886, 891, 586 P.2d 1207 (1978) (quoting Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co. v. Saunders, 159 F.2d 481, 484 (4th Cir. 1947)).

A defendant has no obligation to join a third-party defendant. See Puget Sound Bank v. Richardson, 54 Wn.App. 295, 298, 773P.2d429 (1989). Generally, persons who are already parties to the lawsuit may not be made third parties under the rule. See, e.g., Rouley v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 235 F. Supp. 786 (W.D. La. 1964).

CR 14 does not permit a defendant "to assert an entirely independent and separate claim against a third party." Rather, for CR 14 to apply, "the claim must originate in the assertion of a liability against the defendant which the defendant then attempts to pass on, in whole or in part, to the third party." Reed v. Davis, 65 Wn.2d 700, 708, 399P.2d338 (1965); see also United States v. One 1977Mercedes Benz, 708 F.2d 444, 452 (9th Cir. 1983), cert, denied, 464 U.S. 1071 (1984) ("A third-party claim may be asserted only when the third party's liability is in some way dependent on the outcome of the main claim and the third party's liability is secondary or derivative."). A third-party claim, however, may be based upon a different legal theory of liability than that contained in the original complaint. Judd v. Gen. Motors Corp., 65 F.R.D. 612, 614-15 (M.D. Pa. 1974).

CR 14 also applies to contribution actions. By statute, Washington departs from the common-law rule prohibiting contribution among joint tortfeasors...