Opinion ID: 777182
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: El-Khoury's Tax Payment

Text: 40 The district court did not consider the fact that El-Khoury paid the sales-tax deficiency because it reasoned that El-Khoury had no right to cure his violation under the PMPA. Whether El-Khoury had such a statutory right is a question that we need not, and do not, decide. 41 But the fact that El-Khoury eventually paid the tax and returned to a status of good standing with the state authorities is material to analyzing how important the sales-tax violation was to the franchise relationship. In other words, El-Khoury's belated compliance with state sales-tax law is relevant to the materiality of the breach. 42 The facts that El-Khoury eventually paid all the sales tax due, that one of Chevron's executives testified that the issue in such a circumstance would be between the Dealer and the state rather than between the Dealer and Chevron, and that Chevron agreed to remove a proposed provision from its Dealer Agreements that had given special attention to tax returns and schedules — taken together — create a genuine issue of fact about the importance to the franchise relationship of El-Khoury's breach. 43 REVERSED and REMANDED.