Interpleader by Counterclaim or Crossclaim

Interpleader by Counterclaim or Crossclaim

A stakeholder cannot always choose who files first. Rule 22(a)(1) describes the stakeholder as a plaintiff: it lets persons with claims that “may expose a plaintiff to double or multiple liability” be joined as defendants and required to interplead.¹ A claimant may sue before the stakeholder does, however, and Rule 22(a)(2) answers that case. A defendant exposed to similar liability may seek interpleader through a crossclaim or counterclaim.² Rule interpleader is therefore open to a defendant as well as to a plaintiff.³

The two pleadings differ only in their target. A counterclaim runs against a party who has sued the stakeholder, and a crossclaim runs against a coparty. Either way, the stakeholder pleads interpleader inside the action already pending and does not start a second one.

A suit by one claimant is the danger interpleader exists to meet. The bank in the account example shows it. X and Y both claim the account, and Y demands the money. If the bank had to litigate against Y and then defend a second suit by X, it might pay the amount twice.⁴ Once Y sues, the bank need not wait for X. It can plead interpleader in Y's suit and force X and Y to argue out ownership between themselves, paying only the winner.⁵

Septembertide Publishing, B.V. v. Stein & Day, Inc. shows the same posture in a contested record. Septembertide pressed contract claims against all the defendants. It moved for summary judgment on them and to dismiss New Library's interpleader action, taking the position that New Library was not a stakeholder entitled to such relief. New Library, which held the paperback funds, cross-moved on its interpleader claim and obtained leave to deposit the funds into court in an interest-bearing account.⁶

The court rejected Septembertide's position. “Plainly, New Library is a disinterested stakeholder.” It was not to blame for the litigation, and had it paid Septembertide directly, it “may have later been exposed to liability from Stein & Day and Bookcrafters, which is precisely the dilemma that Rule 22 seeks to avoid.”⁷ The court measured stakeholder status by exposure to competing claims and by fault for the litigation, not by who filed first. It laid the delay at Septembertide's door: its “unreasonable litigation posture” kept New Library from the ordinary sequence of depositing the funds and then being dismissed.⁸ That deposit-then-dismissal sequence is the ordinary shape of the two stages taken up later. For exam purposes, a stem that opens with a claimant suing the stakeholder has not taken interpleader off the table.

Interpleader should also be kept apart from impleader, since both bring a stranger into a case the defendant is already defending. A defending party who impleads someone seeks to pass its liability along to a person obliged by indemnity or warranty law to cover it. The related common-law device of vouching in gives that person notice of the action and an offer to control the defense.⁹ Interpleader addresses rivals who each claim the same stake, so that one payment to the right claimant ends the stakeholder's exposure.¹⁰