Advisory Commission Comments to Rules 18.01-18.02

Advisory Commission Comments

18.01. Rule 18.01 allows any party to assert in the pleading all claims which the party may have against an opposing party. As these rules provide for a common procedure in circuit and chancery courts, the joinder of legal and equitable claims is made possible, except where jurisdictional limitations prevent such joinder.

18.02. Rule 18.02 is designed to allow a party to accomplish in a single action a result which under prior law required that two or more actions be taken in proper sequence. The particular cases set out in the Rule are illustrative; e.g., if a party has a claim against a debtor, and the debtor has conveyed his or her assets in fraud of the claimant, the claimant can sue for the debt and sue to set aside the fraudulent conveyance at the same time. The court would grant the second remedy – setting aside the conveyance – only if it found that the claimant was entitled to the money judgment sought. (Actually, this particular result was permitted by prior statute (Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-12-101), but it illustrates the purposes of the Rule.)