NAR requests dismissal of antitrust case against Mohammed
After fighting an antitrust lawsuit filed against her in Michigan, the National Association of Real Estate Agents (NAR) has shifted its focus to a similar lawsuit filed against the trade group in Pennsylvania.
On Monday, NAR joined co-defendants Pennsylvania Association of Realtors, Greater Lehigh Valley Real Estate AgentsAllyson Lysaght and Justin Porembo to file a motion to dismiss the Muhammad lawsuit for failure to state a claim.
Originally filed in October by Maurice Muhammad, a broker at Progressive real estateThe lawsuit alleges that NAR, along with other broker associations and executives, violated federal civil rights statutes, engaged in unlawful discriminatory practices, breached their contracts, created a monopolistic system and violated federal antitrust laws.
In his complaint, Muhammad alleges that the defendants “engaged in a pattern of discriminatory practices against minority professionals in the real estate industry.” These practices reportedly include “selective enforcement of professional rules, uneven application of disciplinary measures, and the exclusion of minority professionals from leadership positions.”
Despite the variety of claims Mohammed makes in his lawsuit, his complaint, according to the defendants’ motion, “does not allege any facts supporting the misconduct of any defendant, let alone a plausible claim for damages.”
Mohammed’s claims that the defendants “discriminated against him, violated his due process rights, breached a contract and is liable for monopolization” are “general conclusions” and not “facts,” the motion argues.
It states that his complaint alleges “no incident or act of discrimination,” nor does it address “how the due process clauses of the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments apply to the private companies or individuals here.” Furthermore, it “fails to identify any contractual provisions that Defendants may have violated or what conduct violated them” and contains “no facts supporting a theory of anticompetitive harm.”
For these reasons, the defendants argue that the claims should be dismissed because the complaint does not state a claim for breach of contract or for a civil rights violation under the Sherman or Clayton laws.
