A Houston federal judge has denied class certification in a putative class action lawsuit against Talisman Energy USA, lawyers for Baker Botts, the winning law firm, announced Tuesday.
The lawsuit, which proposed a class of nearly 4,000 royalty owners in the Eagle Ford Shale, alleges Talisman breached their leases to the plaintiffs by failing to properly pay them what they were owed in royalties.
The plaintiffs claim Talisman paid oil and gas royalties based off estimated production and sales volumes instead of the volume of production actually sold, as required in their contract. They also allege Talisman wrongfully used volumetric allocation and estimated shrinkage in its royalty calculations.
After listening to four days of arguments this spring and reviewing “numerous rounds” of briefing that were “uniformly well-argued,” U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison ruled on July 2 that the common questions the proposed putative class brought “do not predominate over the individualized issues in the case” and that the class “faces a high risk of intra-class conflicts of interest, which destroys adequacy.”
In his order, Judge Ellison agreed with the arguments of Talisman’s lawyers, who are from Baker Botts, that the damages determination would have required thousands of individual calculations and adjustments — something counterintuitive to the purpose of a putative class action.
“We are pleased with the court’s decision,” Houston Baker Botts partner Jason Newman said in the announcement. “This ruling recognizes the realities of modern shale development — namely, the widespread use of central processing facilities to aggregate production under oil and gas leases that vary in terms.”
Houston Baker Botts partner Aaron Streett, also on the case, added that the ruling “protects putative class members by ensuring that they are not swept up in a class action that is unsuitable for mass adjudication.”
In an email, Beaumont Provost Umphrey partner Bryan Blevins, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said his clients are “disappointed but still considering the opinion and how we can best respond to the court’s concerns.”
Currently owned by Spanish energy giant Repsol, Talisman entered the Eagle Ford Shale region in 2010 through a joint venture with Statoil.
Others on the Houston-based Baker Botts team, who led the class action certification issues, included partner Louie Layrisson and associates Tina Nguyen, Mark Little, Justin Lipe, Travis Gray, Laura Shoemaker and Margaret Wittenmyer.
Houston attorneys Robert Theriot and Jana Grauberger of Liskow & Lewis also represent Talisman.
The case is Regmund et al. v. Talisman Energy USA, Inc in the Houston division of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The case number is 4:16-cv-02960.