## Facts

- Robinson’s wife filed a separate maintenance action against Robinson.
- Robinson answered and filed a cross-complaint seeking an absolute divorce, alleging his wife committed adultery with Williams and naming Williams as a co-respondent.
- Williams answered in the maintenance/divorce action and denied the adultery allegations.
- Williams later filed a separate action against Robinson for libel and slander, alleging Robinson falsely and maliciously accused him of adultery in the earlier pleadings.
- Robinson moved to dismiss, arguing Williams’s defamation claims were compulsory counterclaims that had to be brought in the earlier action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 13(a).

## Issues

1. Whether Williams’s libel and slander claims based on adultery allegations in Robinson’s divorce pleading “arise out of the transaction or occurrence” that was the subject matter of the earlier maintenance/divorce litigation under Rule 13(a).
2. Whether failure to assert the defamation claims in the earlier action barred Williams from bringing a later, separate suit.

## Decision

- The court denied Robinson’s motion to dismiss.
- The court held Williams’s defamation claims were not compulsory counterclaims under Rule 13(a).
- The court concluded the alleged defamation did not arise out of the same transaction or occurrence as the earlier maintenance/divorce action’s subject matter.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 13(a) makes a counterclaim compulsory only when it arises out of the same “transaction or occurrence” as the opposing party’s claim.
- A completed underlying event (e.g., alleged adultery) and a later publication about that event (e.g., statements in a pleading) can constitute distinct acts for Rule 13(a) purposes.
- A claim is not compulsory merely because it relates to the same parties or general subject matter; it must share a sufficiently close factual connection to the earlier claim.
- Rule 13(a)’s purpose of reducing multiple suits does not justify treating a later, separate wrong as part of the earlier transaction or occurrence.

## Conclusion

The court permitted Williams’s separate defamation action to proceed because the alleged libel and slander consisted of later statements in litigation pleadings and did not arise from the same transaction or occurrence as the marital dispute and alleged misconduct at issue in the prior maintenance/divorce action.


Williams v. Robinson, 1 F.R.D. 211 (D.D.C. 1940)