Fourth Court Addresses Subject Matter Jurisdiction Over Hypothetical JOA Declarations and Cross-Netting of Multi-Agreement Obligations

The San Antonio Court of Appeals held that a trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction under the UDJA to render a declaratory judgment resolving hypothetical obligations under a joint operating agreement where the actual controversy—whether Marathon owed 1776 unpaid costs, interest, and revenues under three separate JOAs—turned on undisputed facts that Marathon never paid required cash calls. The court affirmed summary judgment for 1776 on its breach of contract claim seeking unpaid JOA obligations, rejecting Marathon's challenges to damage calculations that cross-netted amounts owed across multiple agreements and affirming exclusion of Marathon's fraud counterclaim for failure to establish a duty to disclose.