838
Opinion of the Court
B
The cases forming this pedigree of the limited fund class action as understood by the drafters of Rule 23 have a number of common characteristics, despite the variety of circumstances from which they arose. The points of resemblance are not necessarily the points of contention resolved in the particular cases, but they show what the Advisory Committee must have assumed would be at least a sufficient set of conditions to justify binding absent members of a class under Rule 23(b)(1)(B), from which no one has the right to secede.
The first and most distinctive characteristic is that the totals of the aggregated liquidated claims and the fund available for satisfying them, set definitely at their maximums, demonstrate the inadequacy of the fund to pay all the claims. The concept driving this type of suit was insufficiency, which alone justified the limit on an early feast to avoid a later famine. See, e. g., Guffanti, supra, at 457, 90 N. E., at 176 ("The total amount of the claims exceeds the penalty of the bond . . . . A just and equitable payment from the bond would be a distribution pro rata upon the amount of the several embezzlements. Unless in a case like this the amount
creditors was not, however, available when the executor of the estate admitted assets sufficient to cover its debts, because where assets were not limited, no prejudice to the other creditors would result from the simple payment of the debt to the creditor who brought the bill. See Woodgate v. Field, 2 Hare 211, 213, 67 Eng. Rep. 88, 89 (Ch. 1842) ("The reason for . . . the usual form of decree . . . has no application where assets are admitted, for the executor thereby makes himself liable to the payment of the debt. In such a case, the other creditors cannot be prejudiced by a decree for payment of the Plaintiff's debt; and the object of the special form of the decree in a creditors' suit fails"); see also Hallett v. Hallett, 2 Paige 15, 21 (N. Y. 1829) ("[I]f by the answer of the defendant [in a creditors' or legatees' suit] it appears there will be a deficiency of assets so that all the creditors cannot be paid in full, or that there must be an abatement of the complainant's legacy, the court will make a decree for the general administration of the estate, and a distribution of the same among the several parties entitled thereto, agreeable to equity").
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