Susman Godfrey LLP Files Lawsuit Against Natural Gas Producer Over Lease Underpayments

DALLAS, TX (March 13, 2013) – Susman Godfrey LLP filed a lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of a group of landowners that hold mineral interests across roughly 4,000 acres in the Barnett Shale play. Among the landowners are two members of the Bass family. The action against Chesapeake Operating, Inc. and Chesapeake Exploration, LLC seeks payments for improperly charged deductions among other underpayments on the relevant leases.

According to the complaint, Chesapeake has been violating the leases held by the landowners by underpaying on the royalty payments on the gas produced from the plaintiffs’ land. The complaint also alleges that Chesapeake took improper deductions from royalty payments for post-production costs, such as the cost of gathering and processing the gas. The complaint further claims that Chesapeake engaged in improper affiliated sales to avoid the full royalty burden of the leases.

Daniel Charest, a partner in the Dallas office of Susman Godfrey LLP, represents Robert P. Bass and Edward Bass, among other plaintiffs, in this matter.

The case is Trinity Valley School et al. v. Chesapeake Operating, Inc. et al., Number 3:13-cv-01082-K (N.D. Tex.) (Kinkeade, J.).

About Susman Godfrey LLP

For more than 30 years, Susman Godfrey has focused its nationally-recognized practice on just one thing: high-stakes commercial litigation. It is one of the nation’s leading litigation law firms with offices in Houston, Dallas, Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York.