Opinion ID: 1374307
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the mineral owners had but a single claim; the journal entry must be corrected to make it conformable to the record

Text: The operator challenges the correctness of the following recitation in the journal entry: Plaintiffs are the prevailing parties in this matter as to all claims and allegations asserted in their Amended Petition.  According to the operator, the mineral owners had only one claim arising from its failure to recognize their back-in interests in the well. The mineral owners, on the other hand, consider each count [47] in their amended petition as a separate claim. They urge that the trial court decided one of their claims in their favor and the operator's offer of judgment confessed all the others. Only a single cause of action can be predicated on the same set of facts, [48] but different remedies and theories of liability may be pressed in support of each claim alleged. [49] Although the mineral owners asserted several discrete theories of recovery and invoked a parallel remedy of equitable accounting, they had only one claim for damages. After the trial judge had resolved in the mineral owners' favor the operator's liability for failure to recognize the back-in interests, no alternative theories of relief remained viable. [50] The nisi prius recital that plaintiffs are the prevailing parties on all claims and allegations asserted in their amended petition is overbroad. [51] The journal entry is accordingly ordered to be corrected and the trial judge directed to sign a nunc pro tunc substitute which would reflect, in conformity to the record, that plaintiffs had prevailed on their single claim for damages. [52]