Judge Andrea Bouressa
Sun Metals Group, LLC v. Shuangcheng Yu, Mengling Sun, Sunmetals Products of America, LLC, and Sunmetals Products de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (No. 25-BC01A-0050; 2025 Tex. Bus. 48; December 5, 2025) involved a plaintiff’s motion to remand and request for sanctions. Plaintiff’s motion alleged that its damages did not meet the $5 million jurisdictional threshold, and that Defendants’ motion to remove was not timely.
In an opinion by Judge Bouressa, the court remanded the case to a Harris County district court. The court observed that § 25A.006(f), Government Code, permits a party’s unilateral motion to remove to Business court “not later than the 30thday after . . . the date the party requesting removal of the action discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, facts establishing the business court’s jurisdiction over the action.” § 25A.006(f)(1). Plaintiff argued, however, that Defendants’ removal motion was untimely because the lawsuit had been pending for 10 months in district court. Defendants responded that the 30-day window opened on October 7, 2025, when they filed their fourth amended petition containing a counterclaim for $710,000 in damages. They argued that their counterclaim “pushed the amount in controversy over [the] Court’s jurisdictional threshold amount for the first time—and constituted facts establishing [the] Court’s jurisdiction.” Consequently, their October 28 motion to remove was timely.
The court disagreed, concluding that Defendants’ “basis for removal was evident no later than September 8, 2025.” On that day Plaintiff filed its second amended petition claiming damages and costs of “over $3,343,694.58.” But as the court observed, Defendants, in their second amended petition, pleaded alternative causes of action for breach of contract with damages of $499,823.79 and for money and received for $712,529.45. Regardless of whether Defendants assertion that their October 27 counterpetition “pushed” total damages in the case over the $5 million mark, Defendants knew for certain on September 8 what those damages allegedly were. That started the 30-day clock, and Defendants missed it. The court remanded to the district for further proceedings.
