The Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in Glover v. EQT Corporation, 2025 WL 2405514 (4th Cir. Aug. 20, 2025), provides clarity on what plaintiffs must do to certify a class in a breach-of-contract case while reaffirming that individualized fact-intensive inquiries make it difficult to certify fraudulent concealment claims as a class action.

The Glover plaintiffs are mineral owners in West Virginia suing defendant corporation EQT that leases class members’ wells to produce “wet gas” and “natural gas liquids.”  When EQT announced that they were altering their royalty calculation practice, Plaintiffs filed a putative class action against EQT, alleging breach of contract, statutory interest, and fraudulent concealment.  The district court granted certification of classes asserting breach-of-contract and fraudulent concealment claims, but the Fourth Circuit held that only the breach-of-contract claim could be certified for classwide treatment.

As to the breach-of-contract claim, the Fourth Circuit held that the class was ascertainable because “objective data and criteria exist from which Plaintiffs can connect royalty payments to Class Leases and lessors.”  Id. at 6.  The dissent criticized this ruling, noting that the data had only been produced in the case because of what the dissent viewed as an overbroad discovery ruling that “improperly shifted the burden of establishing class ascertainability to EQT.”  Id. at 16.  However, the majority brushed this concern aside because EQT had not appealed this discovery ruling and as such it was not properly before the Court.  Id. at 15.

As to the fraudulent concealment claim, the Fourth Circuit held that no class should have been certified.  To demonstrate that EQT fraudulently concealed royalties on natural gas liquids under West Virginia law, class members would need to demonstrate that they relied on EQT’s alleged fraudulent acts.  The Fourth Circuit held that these individual questions of reliance in fraudulent concealment claims predominate over class questions.  These questions defeat Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement, and the Fourth Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion in certifying the class.  The Fourth Circuit’s decision reaffirms that because fraud claims often hinge on what individual plaintiffs knew or believed, they are ill-suited for class treatment.