Short answer. Yes. Under Rule 36, Section 3 of the Rules of Court, “when justice so demands, the court may require the parties on each side to file adversary pleadings as between themselves and determine their ultimate rights and obligations.” Co-defendants can be made to sort out their own liability toward each other in the same case.
What the law says
When justice so demands, the court may require the parties on each side to file adversary pleadings as between themselves and determine their ultimate rights and obligations.
Rule 36, Section 3 — Judgment for or against one or more of several parties. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Judgment may be given for or against one or more of several plaintiffs, and for or against one or more of several defendants.
Rule 36, Section 3 — Judgment for or against one or more of several parties. Read the full provision →
The rule behind this power
Rule 36, Section 3 gives the court two related powers when a case has several plaintiffs or several defendants. First, it can render "judgment ... for or against one or more of several plaintiffs, and for or against one or more of several defendants" — meaning the outcome does not have to treat every party on the same side identically. One defendant can be held liable while another is cleared, all in the same decision. Second, and separately, "when justice so demands," the court can require the parties on one side of the case to file pleadings against each other and have their own rights and obligations resolved as part of the same proceeding, rather than leaving that question unanswered.
Why a court would order this
This power exists because disputes between co-parties often cannot be fairly separated from the main case. If several defendants are sued together and part of the real dispute is which of them is actually responsible, or how much each owes relative to the others, forcing everyone to litigate that separately later would mean re-trying much of the same evidence twice. The rule lets the court require the parties on the same side to settle that internal question "as between themselves" while the case is already before it, so the whole dispute — who owes the plaintiff, and who owes whom among the co-parties — is resolved together.
What "adversary pleadings" between co-parties means
The order does not turn co-defendants into allies who must agree. It means each of them can be required to put their competing position in writing — through pleadings filed against each other, within the same case — stating what they believe the other owes or is responsible for. The court then rules on those claims together with the main case, so a single judgment can determine both what is owed to the plaintiff and how that liability, or any other obligation, is divided or allocated among the parties who were on the same side of the original suit.
It is discretionary, not automatic
Nothing in the rule makes this happen in every multi-party case. The text is permissive: the court "may require" it, and only "when justice so demands." In many lawsuits with multiple plaintiffs or defendants, no such order is ever issued, and each party's liability toward the opposing side is simply decided without any cross-filing between co-parties. Whether the court invokes this power depends on the specific facts before it — including whether the parties on the same side genuinely have unresolved obligations toward one another that the case has already put at issue.