Short answer. Yes. When actions involving a common question of law or fact are pending before the court, it may order a joint hearing or trial of any or all the matters in issue, order all the actions consolidated, and make such orders as may tend to avoid unnecessary costs or delay.
What the law says
When actions involving a common question of law or fact are pending before the court, it may order a joint hearing or trial of any or all the matters in issue in the actions; it may order all the actions consolidated
Rule 31, Section 1 — Consolidation. Read the full provision →
What consolidation requires
Rule 31 sets a modest threshold: the actions must involve a common question of law or fact and be pending before the court. They need not be identical — one may be a collection suit and the other an action to annul the same contract; what matters is that some genuine question, legal or factual, runs through both, so that deciding it once serves both cases. Where that is true, the court is given a toolkit rather than a single switch: a joint hearing or trial of any or all the matters in issue, full consolidation of the actions, or tailored orders as may tend to avoid unnecessary costs or delay.
A power of the court, invoked by the parties
Notice the verb: the court may order these things. Consolidation is discretionary, not a right either litigant can demand — a party moves for it, and the court weighs whether combining the cases genuinely economises or instead entangles disputes better kept apart. In practice the motion should show the court the overlap concretely: the same contract, the same accident, the same parcel of land, the same witnesses due to testify twice. The rule's own stated purpose — avoiding unnecessary costs or delay — is the standard to argue to, because it is the standard the court will apply.
Why parties seek it, and why some resist
Consolidation's appeal is efficiency and consistency: one presentation of the shared evidence, one set of hearings instead of two calendars, and — most importantly — no risk of two courts or two proceedings reaching opposite findings on the same fact. The party resisting usually argues the opposite face of the same coin: that the cases share less than claimed, that one is far more advanced than the other, or that joining them delays the simpler case while the complicated one catches up. Both arguments live inside the rule's cost-and-delay standard; the outcome turns on which picture of the combined proceeding the court finds more convincing.
If your two cases overlap
Start by mapping the overlap precisely: list the issues in each case and mark which are common questions of law or fact, which witnesses and documents would otherwise appear twice, and where each case currently stands. That map tells you — and eventually the court — whether to ask for full consolidation, a joint trial limited to the shared issues, or some narrower order. Timing matters too: the earlier the request, the less proceedings must be untangled or repeated. Bring the pleadings of both cases to counsel; the right form of the request depends on how much the cases truly share.