Ashton Kutcher's production company Katalyst Media is suing the California Department of Motor Vehicles for backing out of a reality TV project "abruptly and without justifiable excuse," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Katalyst, along with production company Soda and Pop, Inc., claims that in 2010, Katalyst and the DMV negotiated to develop a half-hour series about the employees and customers of the DMV. TruTV had signed on to air the show before the DMV pulled out.

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"The series was conceived and designed to capture the variously humorous, emotional, dramatic, moving, humanizing and entertaining situations that arise on a daily basis at DMV's more than 170 offices across the state of California," the suit states. "In a five sentence letter to Katalyst producer Jason Goldberg, [DMV deputy director Mike] Marando simply declared that DMV no longer considered the series to be in its 'best interests' and would therefore 'not be moving forward on such a project.'"

Katalyst, which produced Punk'd, True Beauty and Beauty and the Geek, is seeking more than $1.44 million in damages.