Home/Court of Appeals of Texas/All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North// Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc. v. Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, and Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc.// Cross-Appellee, All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North

All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North// Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc. v. Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, and Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc.// Cross-Appellee, All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided January 14, 2025·No. 15-24-00017-CV·Published

Opinion

ACCEPTED

15-24-00017-CV

FIFTEENTH COURT OF APPEALS AUSTIN, TEXAS

1/14/2025 10:59 AM

No. 15-24-00017-CV CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE CLERK

FILED IN

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 15th COURT OF APPEALS AUSTIN, TEXAS

FOR THE FIFTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS 1/14/2025 10:59:46 AM

CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE

Clerk

ALL STAR IMPORTS, INC. d/b/a WORLD CAR MAZDA NORTH,

Appellant / Cross-Appellee, v.

MAZDA MOTOR OF AMERICA, INC.

Appellee / Cross-Appellant, v.

BOARD OF TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES,

Appellee / Cross-Appellee.

REPLY IN SUPPORT OF

MOTION TO STRIKE OR DISREGARD THE MERITS PORTIONS OF MAZDA MOTOR OF AMERICA, INC.’S CROSS-APPELLANT’S BRIEF

World Car Mazda North (“World Car North”) submits this reply in support of its motion to strike or disregard the portions of Mazda Motor of America, Inc.’s (“Mazda”) Cross-Appellant’s Brief that address the merits of the parties’ underlying dispute. As previously noted, the Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (“Board”) does not oppose the motion. Mazda’s response, moreover, offers no sound basis to deny the motion and to leave in place Mazda’s misguided briefing on its merits challenges. World Car North’s

motion already addresses most of Mazda’s response points in detailing why Mazda’s merits briefing is improper on several grounds. But World Car North will briefly highlight a few key problems with Mazda’s response arguments.

First , Mazda repeatedly conflates the two appeals in this matter and wrongly attempts to seize on that commingled view to claim this appeal is about more than jurisdiction. E.g., Resp.4-5, 10, 12-13. Relatedly, Mazda ignores what it has previously said and what this Court actually ordered.

As the motion explains, and as Mazda’s own Cross-Appellant’s Brief states (at page ix), this appeal (15-24-00017-CV) is from a trial court order granting the Board’s jurisdictional plea and dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction. Only jurisdiction was briefed based on the plea to the jurisdiction, no administrative record was filed, and the trial court considered and decided only jurisdiction, ruling that the Board timely granted rehearing from its underlying June 14 Order and thus retains jurisdiction over the underlying dispute. When Mazda later—after both parties had appealed the trial court’s order—filed a notice to remove the trial court case to this Court, that led to a second appeal (15-24-00039-CV). If this Court were to (1) disagree with the trial court and hold that courts have jurisdiction over the Board’s underlying June 14 Order, and (2) rule that Mazda’s notice of removal was timely and

proper (over World Car North and the Board’s objections), then the second appeal (15-24-00039-CV) would be where further proceedings would occur. 1 So that second appeal could, depending on this Court’s rulings, be where merits challenges to the Board’s underlying June 14 Order are litigated, which would mean preparation of an administrative record and then briefing by the parties. In this way, the two appeals are distinct.

Mazda says this appeal (15-24-00017-CV) “is not merely a jurisdictional appeal,” Resp.5, but ignores its previous statements. As World Car North’s motion described (at 8-9), the parties (including Mazda) represented to the court (then the Third Court) in a joint motion filed in the second appeal that “the only issue in the related appeal (No. [15]-24-000[17]-CV) is the threshold subject-matter jurisdiction issue.” Joint 5/29/2024 Mot. to Suspend at 6 (filed in No. 15-24-00039-CV). The parties (including Mazda) also represented that suspending briefing in the second appeal was needed due to “the practical impossibility of…filing briefs addressing the merits of the underlying agency proceeding without an administrative record.” Id. at 7. Mazda utterly ignores these prior statements. Nor does Mazda deny that the premise of World Car

1 If the Court were to find there is jurisdiction but sustain World Car North and the Board’s objections to the notice of removal, that would eliminate the second appeal and return the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

North’s “Motion to Consolidate Appeals, Stay All Proceedings on the Merits, and Set Briefing Schedule on Jurisdictional Issue”—which the Court granted, with Mazda opposed only to staying the administrative-record preparation— was that jurisdiction is the “sole issue” in this appeal (15-24-00017-CV). World Car North’s 3/7/2024 Mot. to Consolidate at 6-8 (filed in No. 15-24-0039-CV).

Mazda’s only basis for claiming that this appeal presents more than jurisdiction is the Court’s consolidation order. But the Court consolidated the appeals only “for administrative purposes” and plainly treated them distinctly. The order expressly “stay[ed] the deadline for filing the administrative record and filing briefs in cause number 15-24-00039-CV,” while ordering briefing in this “cause number 15-24-00017-CV.” 9/24/2024 Order. The Court did not consolidate the appeals as one for all purposes and did not hint at merits briefing. Quite the opposite, the Court stayed all deadlines in the only cause that could present the merits and ordered briefing in this cause that presents only jurisdiction.

Accordingly, Mazda’s argument that the Court has the power to address the merits in this appeal, because Mazda separately “filed a motion for removal that empowers this Court to decide all the merits issues in the case,” is both confused and wrong. Resp.10. The Court lacks authority to delve into

and decide merits issues on appeal from the grant of a jurisdictional plea, see Mot.11-12, which this appeal clearly is, see, e.g. , Mazda.Br.ix. Nothing about the second appeal, originating from Mazda’s removal notice and consolidated for administrative purposes, changes that. Mazda’s only answer to this jurisdictional bar to reviewing Mazda’s merits challenges thus fails.

Mazda’s removal notice is also its only answer to the reality that it is asking this Court to be the first to address its merits arguments. Resp.12-13. The second appeal could present the merits, as explained above, if this Court were to find there is jurisdiction and also overrule World Car North and the Board’s objections that Mazda’s removal notice was improper and untimely. But the Court has stayed all proceedings in the second appeal. And in the trial-court proceeding from which this appeal comes, it is undisputed that the trial court never considered or decided any merits issue. See Mot.14.

Second , Mazda wholly ignores one of World Car North’s jurisdictional arguments against Mazda’s merits challenges. The motion detailed that this Court lacks power to consider these challenges because Mazda did not timely file a petition for judicial review in the trial court from the Board’s underlying June 14 Order. Mot.12-13. Mazda offers no response whatsoever on this point, which alone is a basis to strike or disregard Mazda’s merits briefing. Mazda

purports to answer it, Resp.10, but then addresses an entirely different issue by discussing whether its notice of removal of the trial court case into the second appeal was timely. Mazda thus has no answer to the reality that its merits challenges are not preserved for any court to review because Mazda’s petition for judicial review filed in the trial court was plainly untimely.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North// Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc. v. Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, and Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc.// Cross-Appellee, All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North, (Tex. Ct. App. 2025).

All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North// Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc. v. Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, and Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc.// Cross-Appellee, All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North (All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North// Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc. v. Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, and Mazda Motor of North America, Inc. A/K/A Mazda Motor of America, Inc.// Cross-Appellee, All Star Imports, Inc. D/B/A World Car Mazda North) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.