Definition
Impleaded is the past tense and past participial form of the verb "implead," meaning to have been joined as a defendant in a legal action. A party is impleaded when named and brought into a lawsuit, typically appearing in case captions or titles to signal that the person is a co-defendant alongside another named party. The formulation "A.B., impleaded with C.D." indicates that A.B. is a defendant joined in the same proceeding with C.D.
The term functions primarily as a caption descriptor rather than a term of substantive law. It signals procedural status — that a party has been drawn into litigation — without by itself indicating the nature of the claim against them.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Simple past and past participle of "implead."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately listed; "implead" was understood as a formal verb meaning to bring a suit against, to prosecute at law.
The common and legal meanings are essentially identical in function, but the term rarely appears outside legal contexts. Ordinary speakers would say "sued" or "named as a defendant." "Impleaded" is the specialized, formal register equivalent — its presence in a document is itself a marker of legal drafting convention, not colloquial usage.
Common Confusion
IMPLEADED vs. INTERPLEADED: These terms are frequently confused because of their similar sound. Interpleaded refers to a distinct procedural mechanism (interpleader) in which a stakeholder holding property claimed by multiple parties brings those claimants into court to resolve the competing claims among themselves. Impleaded simply means named as a defendant in a suit. A party can be impleaded into an interpleader action, but the two terms describe entirely different things.
IMPLEADED vs. THIRD-PARTY PRACTICE (VOUCHING IN / THIRD-PARTY COMPLAINT): In modern procedure, "impleader" has acquired a second, more specific meaning: the procedural device by which a defendant brings a new party into the action as a third-party defendant (Rule 14 in federal practice). Historically, "impleaded with" in a case caption simply meant co-defendant status. Researchers should not assume the caption use of "impleaded" implies the formal Rule 14 third-party mechanism, particularly in older sources.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research trap with "impleaded" is its dual life as a caption word and as the participial form of "implead" in its modern procedural sense.
In historical documents — pleadings, court records, and case reports from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — "impleaded with" in a case title is purely descriptive. It means co-defendant and carries no procedural freight beyond that. Researchers reading older reports will encounter titles such as "John Smith, impleaded with Thomas Jones" routinely and should treat it as equivalent to "and Thomas Jones" in a modern caption.
In modern procedural contexts, "impleaded" more often appears as the participial form of the Rule 14 impleader device, where a defendant draws a third party into the action to seek contribution or indemnification. These two uses — historical caption descriptor versus modern procedural term — can cause researchers to misread the nature of a party's involvement in a case if they carry modern assumptions into historical materials, or vice versa.
When searching Law Mind corpus materials, queries for "impleaded" in older case reports and treatises will predominantly return the caption-descriptor usage. Queries in twentieth-century and later procedural materials will more often surface the third-party-practice meaning. Filtering by date is essential for accurate interpretation.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition: impleaded means sued or prosecuted, used specifically in case captions to indicate co-defendant status. Both editions of Black's offer the identical illustrative formula — "A.B., impleaded with C.D." — confirming this was a fixed drafting convention with no variation between editions.
Burrill's entry is fragmentary in the available excerpt, referencing the Law French root "implede" and the Latin derivation, which situates the term in the common law's French-language procedural heritage. This etymology is consistent with the term's formal register: it survived in legal usage precisely because caption conventions in English courts retained Law French forms long after vernacular English displaced Latin and French in ordinary speech.
What the historical dictionaries do not address — because it postdates them — is the modern procedural sense of impleader as a specific Rule 14 mechanism. Researchers relying solely on Black's and Burrill's for guidance on third-party practice will find the definitions insufficient for modern procedural analysis and should consult procedural treatises and the Federal Rules directly.
Jurisdictional Note
The caption use of "impleaded with" is primarily an English common law and early American convention and appears less frequently in modern American practice, where co-defendants are simply listed in the caption by name. The modern procedural mechanism of impleader (third-party practice) exists in federal courts under Rule 14 and in most state courts under analogous rules, but the specific scope and timing requirements vary by jurisdiction.