MUSKOGEE, Okla. (Legal Newsline) – A Texas woman who owns royalty interests in an oil and gas lease for a well in Grady County, Oklahoma, alleges the royalty provision of the lease was violated by Chevron and others.
Mary Kathrine Harris, on behalf of herself and all other similarly situated, filed a complaint Oct. 23 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma against Chevron USA Inc., Pure Partners LP, Union Oil Co. of California, Chevron Midcontinent LP, Four Star Oil & Gas Co. and McFarland Energy Inc. claiming breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, deceit and constructive fraud.
The plaintiff alleges the defendants have underpaid or not paid royalties on natural gas and/or constituents of the gas stream because of improper accounting methods.
"Rather than adopting transparency in their royalty calculation formula, defendants, like most lessees, have guarded their production and accounting processes as confidential or proprietary, thereby depriving the royalty owners of information necessary to understand how defendants calculate royalties," the suit states.
"Defendants paid royalty based on the net revenue defendants receive under their gas contracts which terms royalty owners do not know or approve."
The plaintiff seeks compensatory and punitive damages, trial by jury and other just relief. She is represented by Reagan Bradford, Ryan Wilson and Margaret Robertson of The Lanier Law Firm PC in Oklahoma City; Rex Sharp of Prairie Village, Kansas; and Brett Agee of Garvin Agee Carlton PC in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma case number 6:19-cv-00355-SPS