A bill of peace was an English court practice used in the 17th and 18th centuries for legal disputes involving multiple parties that shared common aspects.
[1] If the equity court allowed the matter to proceed as a bill of peace, the results of the suit would bind all members of the multitude, whether they actually appeared in the case or not.
The bill was limited until 1873 to equitable relief, including an injunction, an accounting or a type of declaratory judgment called a decree.
[citation needed] The Supreme Court of the United States used the bill of peace concepts in development of the implementation of class action litigation.
[4] The origins of the bill of peace practices, as well as class action lawsuits, may be centuries earlier, beginning as early as 1309 in the decisions of the English quasi-judicial counsel then known as the General Eyre.