Case Overview

Craig Haynes was National Coordinating Counsel and primary defense counsel for Chesapeake Operating, Inc. and Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C. in Barnett Shale royalty underpayment cases. Under Craig’s leadership, these cases were ultimately consolidated into two state court multidistrict litigation actions. One MDL involved over 20,000 plaintiffs and the other MDL involved more than fifty cases brought by several different plaintiffs’ counsel. Craig Haynes also performed National Coordinating Counsel and primary defense counsel roles for the Chesapeake defendants in numerous federal cases, including purported class action cases. 

Challenges

Prior to Craig’s involvement, the cases were filed in Courts throughout Texas. Through extensive case management orders in the MDLs, Craig was able to bring order to the voluminous litigation for his clients. Craig successfully accomplished the transfer of all the state cases into the two MDLs to coordinate master and case-specific discovery, expert discovery, pretrial motions, and trial scheduling.

Outcome

Craig and his team, including Shelley Glazer, obtained summary judgment rulings in favor of the Chesapeake defendants concerning Plaintiffs’ contractual claims, damage claims for attorneys’ fees, check stub fraud, punitive damages, alleged violations of the Texas Natural Resources Code, torts under the economic loss rule, and alleged hedging transactions. They reached a full settlement agreement in one of the MDLs and handled each of the other MDL cases and the federal court cases on a case-by-case basis. The Chesapeake defendants won the first state case that was tried in January of 2020. Craig and his team were also successful in dismissing the purported federal class action cases. *VHH attorneys Craig Haynes and Shelley Glazer were at a prior firm during these matters. 

Client Testimonial

“Prior to Craig’s involvement, we were facing a massive amount of cases filed all over the state and nation. Craig brought order to the chaos, consistency in the case administration, and successful results when we needed to try these matters.”

— Chesapeake Representative

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