Minimal diversity as a possible partial solution.

• Position: Class actions - Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Having delved deeply into this topic, the committee is in a position now to make the following findings and recommendations to the Standing Committee on the Rules of Practice and Procedure and the Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction concerning the problems posed by overlapping class actions:

1. Beginning in 1991, the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules has undertaken a searching review of class action practice under Rule 23. This review has involved several conferences, close consultation with members of the bar and bar organizations, publication for comment of several proposals, consideration of extensive testimony and comments on the published proposals, review of empirical studies, and creation of the Working Group on Mass Torts and adoption of its report;

2. On the basis of this extensive inquiry, the Advisory Committee finds that overlapping and duplicating class actions in federal and state court create serious problems that: (a) threaten the resolution and settlement of such actions on terms that are fair to class members, (b) defeat appropriate judicial supervision, (c) waste judicial resources, (d) lead to forum shopping, (e) burden litigants with the expenses and burdens of multiple litigation of the same issues, and (f) place conscientious class counsel at a potential disadvantage;

3. The Advisory Committee has given close consideration to several rule amendments that might address the problems of multi-state class actions but concludes that these proposals test the limits of the committee's authority under the Rules Enabling Act;

4. Large nationwide and multi-state class actions, involving class members from multiple states who have been injured in multiple states, are the kind of national litigation consistent with the purposes of diversity jurisdiction and appropriate to jurisdiction in federal court. Federal jurisdiction protects the interests of all states outside the forum state, including the many states that draw back from the choice-of-law...