Rule 20 Consolidation and Separation of Trials

If you have more than one lawsuit going on that involves the same basic facts or legal questions, the judge can decide to combine them. This means the judge can hold one hearing or trial that covers all the related cases at once, order the cases fully combined for trial, or set up other steps to handle the cases together. The point is to save time and money for everyone involved instead of repeating the same work in separate trials.

On the other hand, the judge can also split things apart. Even within a single case, if there are multiple claims, the judge can order that some claims be tried separately from others. A judge might do this to keep one claim from unfairly influencing how the jury or judge sees another claim, to help resolve certain issues faster, or simply because separating the claims makes more sense for handling the case efficiently.

In short, this rule gives the judge flexibility. If combining cases makes things easier and fairer, the judge can merge them. If keeping things separate works better, the judge can split them apart instead.