Cite as: 527 U. S. 815 (1999)
Breyer, J., dissenting
afforded to the conflicting elements within the class as certified.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice Scalia and Justice Kennedy join, concurring.
Justice Breyer 's dissenting opinion highlights in graphic detail the massive impact of asbestos-related claims on the federal courts. Post, at 866-867. Were I devising a system for handling these claims on a clean slate, I would agree entirely with that dissent, which in turn approves the near-heroic efforts of the District Court in this case to make the best of a bad situation. Under the present regime, transactional costs will surely consume more and more of a relatively static amount of money to pay these claims.
But we are not free to devise an ideal system for adjudicating these claims. Unless and until the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are revised, the Court's opinion correctly states the existing law, and I join it. But the "elephantine mass of asbestos cases," ante, at 821, cries out for a legislative solution.
Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Stevens joins, dissenting.
This case involves a settlement of an estimated 186,000 potential future asbestos claims against a single company, Fibreboard, for approximately $1.535 billion. The District Court, in approving the settlement, made 446 factual findings, on the basis of which it concluded that the settlement was equitable, that the potential claimants had been well represented, and that the distinctions drawn among different categories of claimants were reasonable. Ahearn v. Fibre-board Corp., 162 F. R. D. 505 (ED Tex. 1995); App. to Pet. for
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