Court Opinion

ID: 9672034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:47:40.030102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:13.780042
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
I would adhere to the decisions of this court in State ex rel. Campbell v. James, 263 S.W.2d 402 (banc 1953); Wells v. Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, 459 S.W.2d 253 (banc 1970) and State ex rel. Adrian Bank v. Luten, 488 S.W.2d 636 (banc 1973) holding, in general terms, that the words “transaction” and “occurrence” are not synonymous or interchange*665able and that § 507.040 (now Rule 52.05(a)) permits joinder of parties only when the right to relief arises out of the same transaction or the same occurrence; not both. Judge Hollingsworth’s opinion in the James case provided an interpretation of this rule which the bench and bar have followed for more than twenty years. I still agree with that decision, and the advent of uninsured motorist coverage has not shaken my confidence in its basic soundness.
It may be that the history of the drafting of Federal Rule 20(a), as understood by those who authored Barron & Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure (1961), “suggests clearly that ‘occurrence’ was added merely to guard against any over-restrictive definition of ‘transaction’ and was not intended to add a new and independent concept.” But if that was the intent of the Federal Advisory Committee, I respectfully submit that they should have said so, rather than leave it for someone else to “conclude” that this was their purpose.
Ordinarily each word used in a statute or rule is intended to have a meaning and purpose of its own. To say that “occurrences” are included in “transactions” is to say, in effect, that the word “occurrences” is unnecessarily used in the rule and has no meaning or significance of its own. I respectfully doubt whether the drafters of the original rule intentionally used an unnecessary word or used the second word to guard against a restrictive definition of the first.
The words “transaction” and “occurrence” have always had separate, distinct meanings to me, the same meanings so well articulated in the James case; and I believe the decision in the James case accurately expresses the commonly understood meaning of these words as used in Rule 52.05(a).
T would hold that the joinder of these parties is improper.