DISMISS and Opinion Filed May 3, 2022 

S 

In The 

Court of Appeals 

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas 

No. 05-22-00306-CV 

TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT AND 

JOHN SILOVSKY, WILDLIFE DIVISION DIRECTOR, Appellants 

V. 

RW TROPHY RANCH, LTD. AND ROBERT WILLIAMS, Appellees 

On Appeal from the County Court at Law No. 2 

Kaufman County, Texas 

Trial Court Cause No. 110299-CC2 

MEMORANDUM OPINION 

Before Justices Molberg, Goldstein, and Smith 

Opinion by Justice Goldstein 

Appellants Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and John Silovsky, Wildlife 

Division Director (collectively the Department) filed this interlocutory appeal of the 

trial court’s April 1 temporary restraining order (TRO). The Department asserted in 

its notice of appeal that the TRO implicitly denied its plea to the jurisdiction and 

was, therefore, appealable pursuant to section 51.015(a)(8) of the civil practice and 

remedies code. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. § 51.014(a)(8) (order 

granting or denying a plea to the jurisdiction by governmental unit is subject to 

interlocutory appeal). Appellees RW Trophy Ranch, Ltd. and its owner Robert 
 –2– 

Williams (collectively the Ranch), have filed a motion to dismiss the appeal for want 

of jurisdiction. 

In the underlying case, the Ranch, a deer breeding facility, and Williams sued 

the Department to prevent it from implementing a plan to slaughter all of its deer in 

an effort to contain an outbreak of chronic wasting disease – a contagious and fatal 

neurodegenerative disorder. After the trial court signed an initial TRO, the 

Department filed a plea to the jurisdiction. At the conclusion of the March 29 

hearing on the Department’s plea, the Ranch announced that it intended to file a 

second request for a TRO. It asked the trial court to grant its second request and 

defer ruling on the Department’s plea until the trial court “has a chance to look at 

some of the merits of the case.” The Ranch filed its request for a second TRO on 

March 30. On April 1, after the parties had submitted their proposed orders, the trial 

court signed a second TRO that enjoined the Department from killing the deer and 

set a hearing date of April 13 for the Ranch’s application for a temporary injunction. 

By its terms, the TRO expired on April 14.1

The purpose of a TRO is to preserve the status quo and it restrains a party 

from acting only during the pendency of a motion for temporary injunction. See In 

re Spiritas Ranch Enterprises, L.L.P., 218 S.W.3d 887, 895 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 

2007, orig. proceeding). A TRO does not constitute a ruling on the merits. See

1

 By order dated April 15, this Court stayed the Department from euthanizing and initiating postmortem 

disease testing of the deer pending resolution of the motion to dismiss. 
 –3– 

Fernandez v. Pimentel, 360 S.W.3d 643, 646 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2012, no pet.). 

While an interlocutory appeal from the grant or denial of a temporary injunction is 

allowed, no statutory provision permits an appeal from a temporary restraining 

order. See Nikolouzos v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hosp., 162 S.W.3d 678, 680 (Tex. 

App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2005, no pet.). 

 In its motion to dismiss, the Ranch asserts the TRO which expired by its own 

terms on April 14 is not appealable because it did no more than protect the status 

quo for a period of fourteen days as allowed under rule 680 of the rules of civil 

procedure. See TEX. R. CIV. P. 680. For this reason, the Ranch asserts, we lack 

jurisdiction and the appeal should be dismissed. 

In its response to the motion to dismiss, the Department counters the TRO is 

appealable because, in granting the TRO, the trial court implicitly denied its plea to 

the jurisdiction which is subject to an interlocutory appeal. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. &

REM. CODE ANN. § 51.014(a)(8). The Department relies on two cases from this 

Court. See Tex. Dep’t of Family & Protective Servs. v. ASI Gymnastics, Inc., No. 

05-09-01469-CV, 2010 WL 2764793, at *1 n.2 (Tex. App.—Dallas July 14, 2010, 

no pet.) (mem. op.); Abbott v. Jenkins, No. 05-21-00733-CV, 2021 WL 5445813, at 

*5 (Tex. App.—Dallas Nov. 22, 2021, pet. pending) (mem. op.). Those cases are 

distinguishable. Although this Court addressed the implied denial of pleas to the 

jurisdiction, the appellant in each case appealed from a temporary injunction over 

which we do have jurisdiction. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. 
 –4– 

§ 51.014(a)(4) (interlocutory order that grants or denies temporary injunction 

appealable). By contrast, there is no statute giving this Court jurisdiction to review 

a temporary restraining order. 

Additionally, the Department relies on Thomas v. Long, 207 S.W.3d 334 (Tex. 

2006). The plaintiff in Thomas filed a motion for partial summary judgment on two 

of her claims and the defendant filed a cross-motion for summary judgment in which 

he challenged the trial court’s jurisdiction over those claims. See id. at 337. The 

trial court granted the plaintiff’s motion and the defendant appealed. The court of 

appeals dismissed the appeal because the record did not contain an order denying 

the plea to the jurisdiction. The Supreme Court reversed. It held the trial court’s 

granting partial summary judgment constituted an implicit rejection of Thomas’s 

jurisdictional challenges asserted in his cross-motion for summary judgment because 

the trial court could not have reached the merits without subject matter jurisdiction. 

Id. at 339-40. The holding in Thomas is inapplicable because, unlike this case, the 

trial court in Thomas made a ruling on the merits which it could not do without first 

determining it had jurisdiction. 

Here, the TRO did nothing more than maintain the status quo for the allowable 

amount of time under rule 680. On the record before us, it appears the trial court 

implicitly deferred ruling on the plea to the jurisdiction in favor of entering the TRO 

as requested by the Ranch at the hearing. We cannot construe the straight-forward 

TRO as an implicit denial of the plea to the jurisdiction. Because there is no 
 –5– 

authority allowing review of a temporary restraining order, we grant the Ranch’s 

motion, lift the stay issued by this Court’s April 15, 2022 order, and dismiss the 

appeal. See TEX. R. APP. P. 42.3(a). 

220306F.P05 

 

/Bonnie Lee Goldstein/

BONNIE LEE GOLDSTEIN 

JUSTICE 
 –6– 

S 

Court of Appeals 

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas 

JUDGMENT 

TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE 

DEPARTMENT AND JOHN 

SILOVSKY, WILDLIFE DIVISION 

DIRECTOR, Appellants 

No. 05-22-00306-CV V. 

RW TROPHY RANCH, LTD. AND 

ROBERT WILLIAMS, Appellees 

 On Appeal from the County Court at 

Law No. 2, Kaufman County, Texas 

Trial Court Cause No. 110299-CC2. 

Opinion delivered by Justice 

Goldstein. Justices Molberg and 

Smith participating. 

 In accordance with this Court’s opinion of this date, the appeal is 

DISMISSED. 

 It is ORDERED that appellees RW TROPHY RANCH, LTD. AND 

ROBERT WILLIAMS recover their costs of this appeal from appellants TEXAS 

PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT AND JOHN SILOVSKY, WILDLIFE 

DIVISION DIRECTOR. 

Judgment entered May 3, 2022