Cite as: 527 U. S. 815 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
subdivision (b)(1)(B) action have no inherent right to abstain. The legal rights of absent class members (which in a class like this one would include claimants who by definition may be unidentifiable when the class is certified) are resolved regardless of either their consent, or, in a class with objectors, their express wish to the contrary.23 And in settlement-only class actions the procedural protections built into the Rule to protect the rights of absent class members during litigation are never invoked in an adversarial setting, see Amchem, supra, at 620.
In related circumstances, we raised the flag on this issue of due process more than a decade ago in Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U. S. 797 (1985). Shutts was a state class action for small sums of interest on royalty payments suspended on the authority of a federal regulation. Id., at 800. After certification of the class, the named plaintiffs notified each member by first-class mail of the right to opt out of the lawsuit. Out of a class of 33,000, some 3,400 exercised that right, and another 1,500 were excluded because their notices could not be delivered. Id., at 801. After losing at trial, the defendant, Phillips Petroleum, argued that the state court had no jurisdiction over claims of out-of-state plaintiffs without their affirmative consent. We said no and held that out-of-state plaintiffs could not invoke the same due process limits on personal jurisdiction that out-of-state defendants had under International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S.
23 It is no answer in this case that the settlement agreement provided for a limited, back-end "opt out" in the form of a right on the part of class members eventually to take their case to court if dissatisfied with the amount provided by the trust. The "opt out" in this case requires claimants to exhaust a variety of alternative dispute mechanisms, to bring suit against the trust, and not against Fibreboard, and it limits damages to $500,000, to be paid out in installments over 5 to 10 years, see supra, at 827, despite multimillion-dollar jury verdicts sometimes reached in asbestos suits, In re Asbestos Litigation, 90 F. 3d, at 1006-1007, n. 30 (Smith, J., dissenting). Indeed, on approximately a dozen occasions, Fibreboard had settled for more than $500,000. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 373a.
847
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