Definition
In equity pleading, multifariousness is the procedural defect of improperly joining in a single bill of complaint distinct and independent matters, thereby confounding them. The doctrine operates in two related but distinct forms: (1) uniting in one bill several matters perfectly distinct and unconnected against a single defendant, and (2) demanding several matters of a distinct and independent nature against several defendants in the same bill. In either form, the vice is the same — a bill so drawn forces a defendant (or defendants) to litigate claims that have no legitimate business being resolved together.
The concept is closely related to, and often treated as synonymous with, misjoinder of claims in equity practice. Bouvier notes that the uniting of distinct matters against a single defendant is "more commonly called misjoinder of claims," while the multi-defendant variant retains the label multifariousness proper. Both conditions gave courts of equity grounds to dismiss or require amendment of the offending bill.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "The characteristic of being multifarious" — that is, having great variety or diversity.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Multiplied diversity. The fault of improperly uniting in one bill distinct and independent matters, and thereby confounding them."
Webster's 1913 is unusual here: it gives both the ordinary sense (multiplied diversity) and the legal sense (the pleading defect) in a single entry, citing Burrill directly. This conflation is itself instructive. The legal term derives its force precisely from the negative connotation of excessive variety — a bill suffering from multifariousness has too many unrelated things going on at once. Researchers should note that the legal meaning is not merely the ordinary word applied to pleading; it is a formal term of art with specific doctrinal content that the plain adjective "multifarious" does not capture on its own.
Common Confusion
Multifariousness is sometimes used interchangeably with misjoinder of claims or improper joinder, and Bouvier treats the single-defendant form as essentially identical to misjoinder. The distinction worth preserving: misjoinder is the broader modern term (applicable in both law and equity, and carried forward into code pleading and the Federal Rules), while multifariousness was native to equity pleading specifically and carried connotations about the coherence of the bill as a whole — not merely whether individual claims could be joined, but whether the bill could be intelligibly prosecuted and defended. With the merger of law and equity in most American jurisdictions, multifariousness as a standalone doctrine largely dissolved into general joinder rules, but the term persists in older authorities and in jurisdictions that retained equity practice longer.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs almost entirely to the equity pleading era and is primarily encountered in pre-merger case law and treatises — Story's Equity Pleading, Cooper's Equity Pleading, and Daniel's Chancery Practice being the foundational authorities the historical dictionaries cite. Researchers working in nineteenth-century federal equity or in state chancery records will encounter objections on grounds of multifariousness with some regularity; understanding that the court was being asked to dismiss or reform a bill for structural overreach — not for substantive deficiency — is essential to reading those decisions correctly.
The doctrine presents a research trap for modern lawyers reading old equity opinions: a dismissal for multifariousness was not a judgment on the merits of any individual claim. The plaintiff's underlying rights were typically preserved; the court was simply refusing to hear everything at once. Conflating such a dismissal with a ruling against the plaintiff's substantive position is a common and serious misreading.
Jurisdictional variation matters here as well. States that maintained separate equity courts longer (notably Delaware and New Jersey) developed richer multifariousness doctrine than states that moved quickly to code pleading after the Field Code reforms of the 1840s–1860s. Research in those jurisdictions may require tracing multifariousness decisions well into the twentieth century, while in other states the term effectively disappears from reported opinions after equity merger.
Corpus researchers should also watch for the doctrine's invocation in patent and trust litigation, where complex multi-party, multi-claim bills were common and challenges for multifariousness were a standard defensive maneuver. Bouvier's cross-reference to PATENT is a useful signal here.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition, with Black's (both editions) and Burrill tracking Story's Equity Pleading § 271 almost verbatim. Anderson adds a useful gloss — "blending in one bill in equity matters which in their nature are distinct and independent" — that captures the underlying logic more plainly than the technical formulation. Bouvier is the most analytically useful of the shelf sources, distinguishing the two forms of the defect (single-defendant variant versus multi-defendant variant) and flagging the synonym relationship with misjoinder of claims.
No historical dictionary source meaningfully addresses the post-merger fate of the doctrine or its translation (or non-translation) into code pleading and the Federal Rules. Researchers should not assume the doctrine carried forward intact; it did not. The Rapalje & Lawrence entry in the source material is misfiled — that entry concerns movables in wills and is irrelevant to this term.
Jurisdictional Note
Multifariousness as a distinct equity pleading doctrine is largely obsolete in federal courts and in states that have adopted rules-based civil procedure modeled on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, where joinder is now governed by Rules 18–21. It retains doctrinal relevance in Delaware's Court of Chancery and in other jurisdictions preserving separate equity jurisdiction, and it remains a live interpretive concept when reading pre-merger equity decisions from any American jurisdiction.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Equity Pleading
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Joinder of Claims and Parties
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Merger of Law and Equity