Short answer. No. Section 11 of Rule 3 states plainly that neither misjoinder nor non-joinder of parties is a ground for dismissing an action. The court can simply drop or add parties on motion, or on its own initiative, at any stage and on just terms.
What the law says
Neither misjoinder nor non-joinder of parties is ground for dismissal of an action. Parties may be dropped or added by order of the court on motion of any party or on its own initiative at any stage of the action and on such terms as are just.
Rule 3, Section 11 — Misjoinder and non. Read the full provision →
Dismissal is off the table for this defect
Section 11 forecloses a drastic response to a party-naming mistake: 'Neither misjoinder nor non-joinder of parties is ground for dismissal of an action.' Misjoinder means including someone who should not have been made a party; non-joinder means failing to include someone who should have been. Either error, standing alone, is not treated as fatal to the case — the Rules prioritize resolving the actual dispute over dismissing a case for a curable party-line mistake.
How the court actually fixes the problem
Instead of dismissal, Section 11 authorizes the court to drop or add parties, by order, on motion of any party or on the court's own initiative, 'at any stage of the action and on such terms as are just.' This gives courts an ongoing, flexible tool to correct the party roster as the case develops, rather than freezing the parties at the moment the complaint was filed and treating any error as irreversible.
Claims against a misjoined party can be severed
Where a party was wrongly joined, Section 11 provides a further option: any claim against a misjoined party may be severed and proceeded with separately. This lets the court peel off the claim involving the wrongly included party into its own proceeding, rather than either keeping an improper party stuck in the main case or dismissing the entire action to get rid of them.
What misjoinder and non-joinder do not affect
Because dismissal is off the table for this kind of defect, the underlying claims among the properly joined parties continue to be litigated on their merits while the party issue is sorted out separately. A defendant improperly joined, or a necessary party left out, does not give any party a shortcut to end the case; it only triggers the court's power to drop, add, or sever parties, not a right to have the whole action thrown out. Nor does the section relieve a plaintiff of the burden of eventually joining an indispensable party if the court determines one is missing; it simply forecloses dismissal as the automatic penalty for the omission, favoring correction over termination of the case.