Court Jurisdiction, Procedure and Review: Class Action Court Jurisdiction, Procedure and Review: Interlocutory Appeals

摘要

Royalty owners (collectively, Yarbrough) bring a class action against Phillips Petroleum Company (Phillips), alleging that Phillips underpaid oil and gas royalties. In 2008, the Texas Supreme Court affirms the decertification of two subclasses, reverses decertification of another, and remands the issue of that certification back to the trial court with instructions for the trial court to conduct a res judicata analysis regarding that class's potential for certification. Bowden v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 247 S.W.3d 690,168 O.&G.R. 299 (Tex. 2008) On remand and over Phillips's objections, the trial court allows Yarbrough to add an implied covenant claim to Yarbrough's petition without a new certification motion or hearing. Phillips then files a notice of interlocutory appeal and a petition for writ of mandamus to the court of appeals. The court rejects Phillips' claim that the trial court orders relating to these additional claims alters the fundamental nature of the class even though on their face neither order changes the classes that the Supreme Court had approved. The court of appeals dismisses the appeal for want of jurisdiction and denies the petition as well. Phillips then files both a petition for review and writ of mandamus in the Texas Supreme Court.