Multifariousness

A defect in equity pleading, consisting in the uniting in one bill of several claims of a distinct and independent nature, and which ought to be the subject of distinct suits. A bill obnoxious to this objection is said to be " multifarious." Multifariousness, in equity pleading, is improperly joining in one bill distinct and independent matters, and thereby confounding them; as, for example, the uniting in one bill of several matters perfectly distinct and unconnected, against one defendant, or the demand of several matters of a distinct and independent nature against several defendants in the same bill. In strictness, to use " misjoinder," where different and distinct claims are mixed in the same bill against the same defendant, would be more correct. What is more familiarly understood by the term multifariousness, as applied to a bill, is where a party is able to say he is brought as a defendant upon a record, with a large portion of which, and of the case made by which, he has no connection whatever. But to lay down any rule, applicable universally, or to say what constitutes multifariousness as an abstract proposition, is, upon the authorities, utterly impossible.

Wharton.