| Dominion Resources will pay about $50 million to 25,000 oil and gas owners to resolve a lawsuit that says that Dominion cheated them out of natural gas royalties.
The settlement was announced this week, according to federal court records.
The gas royalty dispute was like those that prompted a $400 million jury verdict against Chesapeake Energy Corp. in January 2007.
Chesapeake is appealing that verdict, after the WV Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
A much smaller royalty case also has been settled, and negotiations are continuing toward resolving a similar class-action royalty case against Equitable Resources.
Four cases have been brought in a class-action suit by Charleston lawyer Marvin Masters.
Gas producers have been claiming they could deduct production costs before calculating royalty payments to land and mineral owners.
The lawsuits says that oil and gas companies schemed to intentionally mislead mineral owners into believing that they were being paid all of the royalties due them.
In the Chesapeake Energy case, Roane County jurors awarded a class of more than 10,000 gas well owners $134 million in compensatory damages and $270 million in punitive damages.
The verdict prompted an outcry from the oil and gas industry, with Gov. Joe Manchin leading the charge to rewrite state gas royalty laws.
Lawyers in the Dominion case began to notify potential class members of the settlement. Generally, the lawsuit includes anyone who had an oil and gas lease with Dominion in West Virginia after June 22, 1996.
If you received a royalty payment from Dominion for a West Virginia gas well since June 22, 1996, you could get a payment from a class action settlement. Call toll-free (866) 475-7755 or see www.dominionclass.com
A much smaller case with similar allegations against North Coast Energy Inc. was settled in federal court for $40,000, records show. The settlement involved several individual plaintiffs, and the lawsuit was never certified as a class action, according to Charleston newspapers.
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