Sunoco, Inc. (R&M), et al. v. Perry Cline, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated

The decision below affirmed an award of $100 million in damages to a class full of members who have never been identified and likely never will be, with upwards of three-quarters of that judgment bound for unclaimed-property funds and class counsel’s coffers. This case involves a class of 53,000 “oil-well interest owners” to whom petitioners failed to pay statutorily required interest on late proceeds payments. But the class was not confined to people who actually received a late proceeds payment. It instead included thousands of well interests for which no one had been paid proceeds, and proceeds were instead sitting in unclaimed-property funds—because petitioners could not identify or locate their owners. Respondent does not claim to know who is entitled to most of those proceeds or have any administratively feasible means of identifying them. Yet he nonetheless sought to recover interest on behalf of those unknown owners— even though entitlement to interest turns on whether and when someone secured “marketable title,” which cannot be determined without knowing who claims to have it. The district court certified the class and awarded it $100 million—nearly two-thirds of which is attributable to these unknown “owners”—and the Tenth Circuit affirmed. In doing so, it took the wrong side of a circuit split over whether a class must provide a feasible means of ascertaining its members, and it sanctioned nearly $70 million in damages that no one has been proven to have standing to recover. The question presented is: Whether Rule 23 or Article III permits a court to certify a class and award all members damages when