Matzen v. Cities Service Oil Co.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Miller, J.:

This is an interlocutory appeal by the defendants in sixteen consolidated class action natural gas royalty cases. The plaintiffs are natural gas royalty owners in Grant, Haskell, Seward and Stevens Counties, and the individual cases were filed in the district courts of those counties, all of which are in the Twenty-sixth Judicial District. The defendants are gas producers who produce and market natural gas from the leases under which the royalties arise. Defendants include Amoco Production Company, Ashland Exploration, Inc., Ashland Oil,…