Cite as: 527 U. S. 815 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
pare Civil Rules Advisory Committee Meeting, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 1963, Congressional Information Service Records of the U. S. Judicial Conference, Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure 1935-1988, No. CI-7104-53, p. 11 (hereinafter Civil Rules Meeting) (comments of Reporter Kaplan) (Rule 23(b)(3) represents "the growing point of the law"); id., at 16 (comments of Committee Member Prof. Albert M. Sacks) (Rule 23(b)(3) is "an evolving area"). Thus, the Committee intended subdivision (b)(1) to capture the " 'standard' " class actions recognized in pre-Rule practice, Kaplan, Continuing Work 394.
Consistent with its backward look under subdivision (b)(1), as commentators have pointed out, it is clear that the Advisory Committee did not contemplate that the mandatory class action codified in subdivision (b)(1)(B) would be used to aggregate unliquidated tort claims on a limited fund rationale. See Monaghan, Antisuit Injunctions and Preclusion Against Absent Nonresident Class Members, 98 Colum. L. Rev. 1148, 1164 (1998) ("The 'framers' of Rule 23 did not envision the expansive interpretations of the rule that have emerged . . . . No draftsmen contemplated that, in mass torts, (b)(1)(B) 'limited fund' classes would emerge as the functional equivalent to bankruptcy by embracing 'funds' created by the litigation itself"); see also Schwarzer, Settlement of Mass Tort Class Actions: Order Out of Chaos, 80 Cornell L. Rev. 837, 840 (1995) ("The original concept of the limited fund class does not readily fit the situation where a large volume of claims might eventually result in judgments that in the aggregate could exceed the assets available to satisfy them"); Marcus, They Can't Do That, Can They? Tort Reform Via Rule 23, 80 Cornell L. Rev. 858, 877 (1995). None of the examples cited in the Advisory Committee Notes or by Professor Kaplan in explaining Rule 23(b)(1)(B) remotely approach what was then described as a "mass accident" case. While the Advisory Committee focused much attention on the amenability of Rule 23(b)(3) to such cases,
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