shall be a party plaintiff to any such action unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party and such consent is filed in the court in which such action is brought. 29 U.S.C.A. § 216(b) (West 1988). On June 25, 1938, the date of § 16(b)’s enactment, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure had been proposed and were pending before Congress, but had not yet become effective. One problem bedeviling the common law of class actions in this country in 1938 was the binding effect of the class action decree on absent class members. Chafee, supra, at 224-25. In the United States the application of res judicata to absent parties in class suits raised constitutional issues of due process. Compare Supreme Tribe of Ben Hur v. Cauble, 255 U.S. 356, 41 S.Ct. 338, 65 L.Ed. 673 (1921) (<HOLDING>) and Restatement of Judgments § 86 (1942) (all
holding state immune from suit brought in state court holding federal courts are bound by state court determinations of state law recognizing that state agencies which are independent of the state are citizens of the state holding all members of beneficial society bound by state decree in class action including citizens of the state in which federal action seeking to enforce state decree was brought who were not parties to the state suit holding that where the action was filed as a class action and a consent decree was entered into entry of the consent decree was sufficient certification of the action as a class action under rule 23