The moving parties, a corporate tenant and its principal, sought to consolidate a landlord's action against the principal (as indemnifier) into the tenant's existing action against the landlord, to be asserted by way of counterclaim.
The court dismissed the motion for consolidation, finding that the Rules of Civil Procedure do not permit a counterclaim against only a non-party without also claiming against the plaintiff.
However, the court granted the alternative relief, which the responding party had previously agreed to, ordering that the two actions be tried together or one after another, with shared discovery evidence.
