Legal Memorandum: Joinder of Causes of Action in FL

Issue: May multiple causes of action be pleaded in Florida?

There is no applicable authority that precludes pleading two causes of action, even if inconsistent, in one pleading.  Booker, 707 So. 2d at 888.  In fact, the rules expressly permit a party to state as many separate claims as that party has in a single pleading, “regardless of consistency.”  Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(g).

Moreover, only when a claim is “founded upon a separate transaction or occurrence” must it be stated in a separate court and then only “when a separation facilitates clear presentation.”  Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(f).  Otherwise, separate claims though inconsistent with each other or even mutually exclusive may be set forth in a single court.  Johnson v. State, Dep’t Health & Rehab. Servs., 695 So. 2d 927, 931 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 1997); Mueller, 620 So. 2d at 790.

Whether complaints expressly state the legal conclusion is not significant as ultimate facts, rather than mere legal conclusions, are all that is required.  See Townsend, 728 So. 2d at 300.

[…]