## Facts

- Lauren M. Lucas alleged he was injured as an invitee in Sears’s Juneau order office when he stepped on a round pencil on the floor, causing him to fall and injure his back.
- Lucas was hospitalized locally and later planned to travel to Seattle for further treatment.
- Eighteen days after the store incident, Lucas rode to the airport in a City of Juneau ambulance.
- Lucas alleged the ambulance driver suffered an epileptic seizure, the ambulance left the highway, and Lucas was thrown to the floor, aggravating his prior back injury.
- Lucas sued Sears and the City in a single tort action seeking $90,000, alleging Sears negligently allowed the pencil to remain on the floor and the City negligently employed an epileptic driver.
- Both defendants moved to dismiss for misjoinder under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a).

## Issues

1. Whether the store injury and the later aggravation from the ambulance crash constituted a single, indivisible injury such that Sears and the City could be treated as joint tortfeasors.
2. Whether, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a), the claims against Sears and the City arose out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences and presented a common question of law or fact sufficient to permit joinder.

## Decision

- The court granted the motions to dismiss for misjoinder.
- The court held the alleged negligence involved two separate accidents producing distinct injuries at different times and under different circumstances, not a single injury produced by concurring acts.
- Because the claims did not arise from the same transaction or occurrence (or series) and did not present the type of common question required by Rule 20(a), the defendants could not be joined in one action.
- The court did not decide the merits of either negligence claim.

## Legal Principles

- Permissive joinder under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a) requires (1) a right to relief arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences, and (2) at least one common question of law or fact.
- Independent negligent acts may create joint and several liability only when they concur to produce a single, indivisible injury; separate events causing an original injury and a later aggravation do not automatically create “true” joint tortfeasor status.
- Difficulty allocating damages between successive injuries, by itself, does not convert separate occurrences into the same transaction or occurrence for Rule 20(a) purposes.

## Conclusion

The court treated the slip-and-fall and the later ambulance crash as separate occurrences and held that Sears and the City were improperly joined; Lucas could not proceed against both defendants in a single action under Rule 20(a) on the pleadings alleged.


Lucas v. City of Juneau, 127 F. Supp. 730 (D. Alaska 1955)