An attorney for Southwestern Energy Co. subsidiary Seeco Inc. is asking the Arkansas Supreme Court to put a hold on a class-action lawsuit in Conway County pending an appeal.
Seeco attorney Jess Askew III wrote in pleadings filed last week that judges in two counties, St. Francis and Conway, had granted class-action status to “virtually identical” complaints filed in their courts. Both lawsuits seek damages for “alleged royalty underpayment” to mineral-interest owners, he wrote.
A third, similar lawsuit was filed in federal court against the company, but that plaintiff has not yet moved for class-action status, according to Askew’s filing.
The company has appealed the decision to grant class-action status in the state court cases, but one county judge has allowed the trial proceedings to continue while the appeal moves forward, Askew wrote.
Askew argues that the state’s high court should pause those proceedings or else it “would raise serious constitutional and jurisdictional issues.” He said the court should also combine those cases while it had the chance.
“The pendency of three class actions in three different courts, two Arkansas Circuit Courts and a federal district court, on essentially the same claims, deprives SEECO of the ‘fairness’ to which this Court says a defendant is entitled, and the only supposed ‘benefit’ that a class action can offer a defendant,” Askew wrote.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs had not yet responded to the appeal by press time.
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