Major brokers denied dismissals in the Batton 1 commission case
The taste of victory was short-lived RE/MAX, Keller Williams And Everywhere. After the Batton 1 Home Buyer Commission trial was successfully postponed in October due to the defendants receiving final approval of their Home Buyer Commission settlements, the three national brokers were not so lucky with their motions to dismiss.
In early October, Chicago-based Judge LaShonda Hunt – who is overseeing the two Batton trials after Judge Andrea Wood recused herself in early September – accepted the defendants’ motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. But during a hearing on Friday, she denied the requests.
According to Hunt’s ruling, “due process, under longstanding precedent, permits the exercise of personal jurisdiction so long as ‘the defendants have sufficient ‘minimal contacts’ with Illinois such that enforcement of the lawsuit ‘does not conflict with the traditional notions of fair play and substantive justice’. “, and that personal jurisdiction may be “general, where a defendant has ‘continuous and systematic general business contacts’ in the forum state or specifically, ‘where (1) the defendant has purposefully directed his activities to the forum state or has purposefully taken advantage of the privilege to do business in that state, and (2) the alleged harm arises from the defendant’s forum-related activities.'”
Hunt noted that the three defendants filed an initial motion to dismiss the lawsuit in April 2021, but only HomeServices of America – who was dismissed from the lawsuit in February 2024 – filed a motion to dismiss for personal jurisdiction. Furthermore, the judge noted that the other defendants only adopted this strategy after HomeServices was fired.
“At no time did Moving Defendants attempt to amend their own motion to dismiss to add the defense of personal jurisdiction, join HomeServices Defendants’ motion, or otherwise assert or preserve the defense, despite being aware that HomeServices Defendants had been conducting the defense as of at least September 2022,” Hunt wrote.
Because the three defendants did not include this argument in their initial motions to dismiss, Hunt opined that the court did not need to “consider whether plaintiffs have met their burden to establish personal jurisdiction over the moving defendant.”
The defendants filed their motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction in April 2024. The brokers argued that the plaintiffs and the court lacked personal jurisdiction because the companies were not headquartered or incorporated in Illinois. Additionally, they noted that none of the plaintiffs had purchased homes in Illinois.
The National Association of Real Estate Agents (NAR) is the final defendant in the Batton 1 lawsuit, which was filed in January 2021.
In the Batton 2 complaint, which was filed November 2023the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. They want to add 25 new class representatives and drop four constitutional claims from the lawsuit. The plaintiffs argue that the dismissal of the claims under state law is not “futile” and that the new plaintiffs “advocate identical claims to those already asserted by plaintiffs and affirmed by this court.”
Additionally, they note that the introduction of new plaintiffs “will not cause undue prejudice or delay because defendants have not yet filed discovery requests and the court has not yet implemented a discovery schedule.”
The defendants in the Batton 2 lawsuit include Compass, eXp World Holdings, Redfin, Weichert Realtors And United Real Estate. Howard Hannah And Douglas Elliman were named as defendants when the lawsuit was originally filed, but have since been dismissed.
The remaining defendants in Batton 2 each have pending motions to dismiss that Hunt has advised.
