necessary parties

Fibreboard Corporation, primarily a timber company, manufactured asbestos-containing products for high-temperature industrial applications from the 1920s through 1971. Beginning in the 1970s and accelerating through the 1980s and 1990s, Fibreboard faced thousands of personal injury claims each year from asbestos exposure. From May 1957 through March 1959, Continental Casualty Company issued Fibreboard a comprehensive general liability policy with per-occurrence and per-claim limits but no aggregate limit. Pacific Indemnity Company issued a similar policy for 1956-1957. Fibreboard initiated coverage litigation against both insurers in California state court in 1979. In 1990 the California trial court held the insurers responsible for indemnification of claims involving exposure before their policies expired and required them to pay full defense costs. Fibreboard began structured settlements in 1988, initially paying 40 percent up front with the balance contingent on coverage victory, then shifting in 1991 to full assignments of coverage rights. By December 1992 Fibreboard had deferred settlement obligations exceeding $1.2 billion, all contingent on prevailing in the coverage dispute. After the insurers lost at trial in early 1993, they joined global settlement negotiations conditioned on achieving "total peace" through a mandatory class action. Negotiators reached the Global Settlement Agreement shortly before midnight on August 27, 1993, providing $1.525 billion from the insurers and $10 million from Fibreboard to fund a trust for class claims. The Trilateral Settlement Agreement, executed the same night as a backup, committed the insurers to supply up to $2 billion if the global settlement failed. On September 9, 1993, named plaintiffs filed suit in the Eastern District of Texas seeking certification of a mandatory class under Rule 23(b)(1)(B) that included persons exposed to Fibreboard asbestos who had not sued or settled before August 27, 1993, persons who had dismissed claims without prejudice, and their relatives, but that excluded pending claimants and those who had settled while retaining malignancy rights. After Continental and Pacific had obtained leave to intervene as party-defendants, the District Court provisionally granted class certification, enjoined commencement of further separate litigation against Fibreboard by class members, and appointed a guardian ad litem to review the fairness of the settlement to the class members. After an 8-day fairness hearing, the District Court certified the class and approved the settlement as fair, adequate, and reasonable under Rule 23(e). The Fifth Circuit affirmed. After this Court vacated and remanded in light of Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, the Fifth Circuit reinstated its affirmance in a per curiam opinion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Hiram Barber and Huldah Adeline Barber were married in the State of New York in 1840. Huldah, through her next friend George Cronkhite, a citizen of New York, applied for a divorce a mensa et thoro in the court of chancery for the fourth district of New York. The defendant appeared and resisted the application. The cause was heard on the pleadings and proofs, resulting in a decree that Hiram had been guilty of cruel and inhuman treatment and had abandoned and refused to provide for his wife. The New York court decreed that the parties be separated from bed and board forever, referred the cause to a master to ascertain alimony, overruled the defendant's exceptions to the master's report, and entered a final decree awarding Huldah $360 per year in quarterly installments for her support, with $960 due retroactively from July 1, 1844, plus costs, and future quarterly payments during her life, vested in her as separate estate. A transcript of the authenticated New York record formed the basis for the subsequent federal suit. Hiram left New York shortly after the decree without paying any alimony and without leaving assets there to satisfy it, establishing residence in Wisconsin. In April 1852 he obtained a divorce a vinculo from the Circuit Court of Dodge County, Wisconsin, without disclosing the New York proceedings. Huldah remained in New York as her domicil. Huldah, by her next friend, filed suit on the equity side of the United States District Court for the District of Wisconsin against Hiram, a Wisconsin citizen, alleging $4,242.15 due on the New York decree with interest. Hiram demurred on grounds including that the case was not within chancery jurisdiction and that relief could only be had in New York; the demurrer was overruled. He answered, admitting the New York decree and his nonpayment but asserting the Wisconsin divorce rendered Huldah a feme sole who could not sue by next friend and that any remedy lay at law. After a general replication, hearing on pleadings and proofs, the district court decreed $5,936.80 due for principal and interest to the date of the bill, ordering payment with costs.

In 1991, about 10,000 Exxon dealers filed a class-action suit against the Exxon Corporation in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. They alleged an intentional and systematic scheme by which they were overcharged for fuel purchased from Exxon. The plaintiffs invoked the District Court's diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). Each dealer's claim was for slightly less than the $75,000 jurisdictional minimum. After a unanimous jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the District Court certified the case for interlocutory review on the question of supplemental jurisdiction over class members who did not meet the jurisdictional minimum. In a separate action, a 9-year-old girl sued Star-Kist in a diversity action in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. She sought damages for unusually severe injuries she received when she sliced her finger on a tuna can. Her family joined in the suit seeking damages for emotional distress and medical expenses. The District Court granted summary judgment to Star-Kist, finding that none of the plaintiffs met the minimum amount-in-controversy requirement. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the District Court's extension of supplemental jurisdiction to the class members who did not meet the amount requirement. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that the injured girl, but not her family members, had made allegations of damages in the requisite amount. It further held that section 1367 authorizes supplemental jurisdiction only when the district court has original jurisdiction over the action. In a diversity case, original jurisdiction is lacking if one plaintiff fails to satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the Courts of Appeals. The cases were consolidated before the Supreme Court.

Knudsen filed a claim for compensation against Benson under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act with Deputy Commissioner Crowell of the United States Employees' Compensation Commission. The evidence introduced before the deputy commissioner was directed largely to the employment issue and was conflicting. After considering the evidence the deputy commissioner found that Knudsen was in Benson's employ at the time of the injury and filed an order for compensation. Benson then brought suit in the United States District Court to enjoin enforcement of the award. Benson alleged that Knudsen was not his employee at the time of the injury and that the claim lay outside the deputy commissioner's jurisdiction. An amended complaint further challenged the constitutionality of the Act on multiple grounds. Those grounds included alleged violations of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial, the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, and the judicial power provisions of Article III. The District Judge denied motions to dismiss and granted a hearing de novo upon the facts and the law. The case was transferred to the admiralty docket, answers were filed presenting the issue as to the fact of employment, and the evidence of both parties having been heard, the District Court decided that Knudsen was not in the employ of the petitioner and restrained the enforcement of the award. The decree was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, and this Court granted writs of certiorari.