## Facts

- Hundreds of homeowners sued State Farm Fire and Casualty for property damage allegedly sustained during Hurricane Katrina.
- Each homeowner held a homeowners-insurance policy issued by State Farm.
- The homeowners filed a single lawsuit joining all plaintiffs’ claims against State Farm.
- The court raised, on its own motion, whether the joined claims should proceed together or be separated.
- The court entered a sua sponte show-cause order inviting briefing on whether the homeowners’ claims should be severed into individual lawsuits.
- The homeowners and State Farm submitted responses addressing severance.

## Issues

1. Whether hundreds of homeowners’ Hurricane Katrina property-damage claims against the same insurer satisfied permissive joinder under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a).
2. If the homeowners were misjoined, whether the court should sever the claims into separate actions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21.

## Decision

- The court concluded the homeowners’ claims could not proceed as a single joined action.
- The court ordered the homeowners’ claims severed into separate lawsuits under Rule 21.
- The ruling addressed case organization and procedure, not the merits of coverage, causation, or damages.

## Legal Principles

- Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a) permits plaintiffs to join in one action only if their claims arise out of the same transaction or occurrence (or series of transactions or occurrences) and share at least one common question of law or fact.
- Even when claims arise from the same general event (such as a hurricane), first-party property-insurance claims may involve individualized proof tied to each property, each policy, and each claim-handling history, which can defeat Rule 20 joinder.
- A shared defendant and some overlapping legal questions are not enough, by themselves, to justify joining many separate insureds’ claims into one case when individualized issues predominate.
- Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21, a federal court may sever misjoined parties or claims, including on its own initiative, to manage the action and reduce confusion and unfairness that can result from litigating many distinct claims together.

## Conclusion

In *McFarland v. State Farm Fire and Casualty*, the Southern District of Mississippi addressed a mass-joined Katrina insurance suit and, after ordering briefing through a sua sponte show-cause order, determined the homeowners’ claims should not proceed together and required severance into separate actions under Rule 21.


McFarland v. State Farm Fire and Casualty, 2006 WL 2577852 (2006)