# Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp.

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 23, 1999 · 527 U.S. 815

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433872

## Case

- **Full name:** ORTIZ Et Al. v. FIBREBOARD CORP. Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 23, 1999
- **Citations:** 527 U.S. 815; 119 S. Ct. 2295; 144 L. Ed. 2d 715; 1999 U.S. LEXIS 4373
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Rehnquist
- **Judges:** Souter, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Scaixa, Breyer, Stevens
- **Cited by:** 737 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433872

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating “[i]t is simply implausible that the Advisory Committee, so concerned about the potential difficulties posed by dealing with mass tort eases under Rule 23(b)(3), with its provisions for notice and the right to opt out, see Rule 23(c)(2), would have uncritically assumed…
- holding that when certifying a class for settlement purposes only, the district court should pay “heightened attention ... to the justifications for binding the class members .... because certification of a mandatory settlement class, however provisional technically, effective…
- stating that “an attorney who represents another class against the same defendant may not serve as class counsel,” and finding conflict of interest where attorneys represented proposed settlement class and also separately represented individ *685 ual clients with prior-negotia…
- holding that currently injured plaintiffs and exposure-only plaintiffs do not share the same interests for the currently injured, the critical goal is generous immediate payment whereas for the exposure-only plaintiffs, the goal is to ensure an ample, inflation-protected fund …
- explaining that, where class members’ claims systematically differ in value, “[t]he very decision to treat them all the same is itself an allocation decision with results almost certainly different from the results that those with [more valuable] claims . . . would have chosen”

## Opinion text

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 ease 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.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433872. Public record. Not legal advice.