## Facts

- After Hurricane Katrina’s landfall on August 29, 2005, severe flooding affected St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.
- Murphy Oil USA, Inc. owned and operated the Meraux Refinery, including a large crude-oil storage tank surrounded by containment berms.
- Murphy reported that floodwaters dislodged and ruptured a tank, releasing approximately 25,110 barrels of crude oil and contaminating nearby neighborhoods.
- Nearby homeowners and business owners alleged oil migrated onto their properties, causing contamination, property damage, loss of use, and business interruption.
- Murphy, working with federal and state environmental regulators, conducted assessment and cleanup efforts and used a geographically defined contamination/perimeter concept to guide response.
- Multiple lawsuits were filed and consolidated in the Eastern District of Louisiana; the court managed the litigation through liaison counsel and plaintiffs’ committees.
- Plaintiffs moved to certify a damages class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and 23(b)(3) for property-related claims arising from the spill.

## Issues

1. Whether the proposed class satisfied Rule 23(a)’s requirements of numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation.
2. Whether common issues predominated over individual issues and whether a class action was superior under Rule 23(b)(3) for spill-related property and economic-loss claims.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion for class certification.
- The court found Rule 23(a) satisfied: joinder was impracticable given thousands of affected persons; common liability-related questions existed; representatives’ claims were typical; and representatives and counsel were adequate without disabling conflicts.
- The court found Rule 23(b)(3) satisfied: common questions concerning the spill, its mechanism, migration, and Murphy’s alleged responsibility predominated over individualized issues.
- The court held class treatment was superior given the size of the claimant group, post-disaster displacement, and the inefficiency of litigating complex environmental claims through thousands of separate actions.
- The court noted that certification did not decide ultimate fault or causation and that individualized damages and property-specific inquiries could be handled through later procedures.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 23(a) commonality is met when claims turn on shared, classwide-resolvable contentions, particularly where a single event and a single defendant’s alleged conduct generate common liability questions.
- Typicality is satisfied when representatives and absent members assert the same core theories arising from the same event and alleged course of conduct, even if damages vary.
- Under Rule 23(b)(3), predominance is satisfied where common issues forming the basis of liability outweigh individualized questions about degree of contamination or damages, which may be addressed in subsequent phases.
- Superiority favors class treatment when thousands of geographically concentrated claimants face barriers to individual litigation and class procedures reduce inconsistent outcomes and conserve judicial resources.

## Conclusion

The court certified a Rule 23(b)(3) damages class for property and related claims arising from a single, Katrina-related refinery oil spill, holding that shared liability questions predominated despite individualized property impacts and that class adjudication was the superior method for resolving widespread, disaster-displaced claims.


Turner v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., 234 F.R.D. 597 (E.D. La. 2006)