Short answer. No. A party may not institute more than one suit for a single cause of action. If two or more suits are filed on the same cause of action, filing one, or getting a judgment on the merits in one, is grounds to dismiss the others.
What the law says
A party may not institute more than one suit for a single cause of action.
Rule 2, Section 3 — One suit for a single cause of action. Read the full provision →
What the law says
If two or more suits are instituted on the basis of the same cause of action, the filing of one or a judgment upon the merits in any one is available as a ground for the dismissal of the others.
Rule 2, Section 4 — Splitting a single cause of action; effect of. Read the full provision →
One cause of action, one suit
The rule is stated as a flat prohibition: a party may not institute more than one suit for a single cause of action. This is often called the rule against splitting a cause of action. Where a set of facts gives rise to one right of action, the plaintiff has to bring everything arising from that right together in one case, rather than dividing it into multiple separate lawsuits.
What happens if a party splits the claim anyway
If a party files two or more suits on the same cause of action despite the prohibition, the consequence is specific: the filing of one or a judgment upon the merits in any one is available as a ground for the dismissal of the others. In other words, simply having filed the first case, even before it is decided, already exposes the later duplicate suits to dismissal.
Why the rule exists
Splitting a cause of action forces the defendant to answer the same underlying dispute more than once, wastes court resources on duplicate proceedings, and raises the risk of inconsistent rulings on what is really a single controversy. Requiring a plaintiff to bring the whole claim in one suit keeps the litigation of a single wrong contained to a single case, rather than spread across a series of overlapping filings.
Identifying whether it is genuinely one cause of action
Whether two filings actually involve the same cause of action is the question that decides whether this rule applies. Claims arising from truly separate wrongs, even against the same defendant, are not barred by this rule — it is specifically aimed at carving up a single, indivisible claim into multiple suits, not at preventing a party from bringing genuinely distinct claims separately. Anyone considering more than one filing against the same party should look closely at whether the claims really rest on one underlying set of facts or on genuinely different ones.
Related provisions
- Rule 2, Section 3 — One suit for a single cause of action
- Rule 2, Section 4 — Splitting a single cause of action; effect of