What happens if a party files the same claim in two different courts at the same time?

The certification every case starts with

Rule 7, Section 5 makes duplicate filing a matter of oath from day one. The plaintiff or principal party must certify under oath, in or with every initiatory pleading, that he or she has not theretofore commenced any action or filed any claim involving the same issues in any court, tribunal or quasi-judicial agency, and that to the best of their knowledge no such action or claim is pending. If a related case does exist, the certification must instead give a complete statement of its present status. Filing the same claim in two courts therefore cannot be done honestly — one of the two certifications is false the moment the second case is filed.

A continuing duty to report

The certification is not a one-time formality. If the party later learns that the same or a similar action has been filed or is pending, the party shall report that fact within five calendar days therefrom to the court where their own complaint or initiatory pleading was filed. The undertaking binds even when the second case was filed by someone else. Sitting silently on knowledge of a parallel case breaches the certification just as surely as filing both cases yourself, and the section treats non-compliance with any of its undertakings as contempt.

The ladder of consequences

The sanctions escalate with the culpability. A missing or defective certification shall not be curable by mere amendment and is cause for dismissal of the case without prejudice, upon motion and after hearing. Submitting a false certification, or breaking any of its undertakings, shall constitute indirect contempt of court, without prejudice to the corresponding administrative and criminal actions. And where the acts of the party or counsel clearly constitute willful and deliberate forum shopping, that shall be ground for summary dismissal with prejudice and shall constitute direct contempt, as well as a cause for administrative sanctions. Dismissal with prejudice means the claim cannot be refiled at all.

If you discover a duplicate case

For a defendant, a duplicate case is a weapon: gather the case numbers, the pleadings, and the certifications from both dockets, because the false certification is proved by the filings themselves. For a plaintiff who finds an overlapping case — perhaps filed by a co-party or a predecessor — the five-day report to the court is the way to stay on the right side of the oath. Either way, which of the two cases survives, and on what terms, is a question worth putting to a lawyer quickly, before either court acts on its own.

Related provisions

• Rule 7, Section 5 — Certification against forum shopping