Opinion ID: 2175343
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Is Compliance with Joinder Statutes Required?

Text: Since neither the class members nor their claims may be joined under secs. 260.10 or 263.04, Stats., the issue is crucial whether compliance with these statutes is a necessary prerequisite to maintenance of a class action under sec. 260.12. We conclude that it is not. [4] In a long unbroken line of cases, this court has considered the propriety of maintenance of class actions only in terms of the criteria contained in sec. 260.12, Stats., never once even referring to secs. 263.04 or 260.10. [5] In each of these cases the class action was held proper. Pipkorn v. Brown Deer is the leading recent case on the subject. [6] After tracing the development of the class action doctrine from its origins in the old equity or chancery practice, this court upheld the right of a few beneficiaries of a water trust to defend an action affecting the trust assets on behalf of all similarly situated beneficiaries. The issue before the court was whether the amended complaint pleads a class suit on the part of defendants within sec. 260.12, Stats. [7] No question of joinder under secs. 263.04 or 260.11 (permissive joinder of defendants) was raised or decided. This court's treatment of class actions as governed only by sec. 260.12, Stats., is consistent with the familiar rule of statutory construction that where two statutes deal with the same subject matter, the more specific controls. [8] Here, secs. 263.04, 260.10, 260.11, and 260.12 all pertain to joinder of causes of action or parties. However, since sec. 260.12 on its face applies to particular actions involving numerous parties, class actions, its provisions govern rather than those of the other more general joinder statutes.