Cite as: 527 U. S. 815 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
finding about the transaction cost saving likely from this class settlement, estimating the amount in the "hundreds of millions," id., at 529, it did conclude that the amount would exceed Fibreboard's net worth as the Court valued it, ibid. (Fibreboard's net worth of $235 million "is considerably less than the likely savings in defense costs under the Global Settlement"). If a settlement thus saves transaction costs that would never have gone into a class member's pocket in the absence of settlement, may a credit for some of the savings be recognized in a mandatory class action as an incentive to settlement? It is at least a legitimate question, which we leave for another day.
V
Our decision rests on a different basis from the ground of Justice Breyer's dissent, just as there was a difference in approach between majority and dissenters in Amchem. The nub of our position is that we are bound to follow Rule 23 as we understood it upon its adoption, and that we are not free to alter it except through the process prescribed by Congress in the Rules Enabling Act. Although, as the dissent notes, post, at 882, the revised text adopted in 1966 was understood (somewhat cautiously) to authorize the courts to provide for class treatment of mass tort litigation, it was also
bers of the putative class might attempt to maintain costly individual actions in the hope and, perhaps, the belief that their claims are more meritorious than the claims of other class members," and thus warranting mandatory class certification "to prevent claimants with such motivations from unfairly diminishing the eventual recovery of other class members"). Although the transaction costs Fibreboard faced prior to settlement were at times significant, see Ahearn, 162 F. R. D., at 509; see also App. to Pet. for Cert. 282a (Fibreboard's annual asbestos litigation defense costs ran, at times, as high as twice the total face value of settlements reached), given the exigencies of Fibreboard's contingent insurance asset, this case does not present an instance in which limited fund certification can be justified on the ground that such settlement necessarily provided funds equal to, or greater than, what might have been recovered through individual litigation factoring out transaction costs.
861
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