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Brokerage defendants including Compass, eXp Realty, Redfin, Weichert Realtors and United Real Estate have filed a joint motion to dismiss the lawsuit known as Batton 2, according to reports on Wednesday.
In the motion, filed June 21, attorneys for the defendants called the lawsuit lodged by homebuyers an attempt to “try to parrot the allegations they made in an amended complaint filed against completely different defendants in another case, and hope that is enough for their claims to survive here,” according to Real Estate News.
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The reference to the other case is Batton 1, a lawsuit filed by homebuyers against the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Keller Williams, RE/MAX and Anywhere, which alleged that NAR’s rules inflated agent commissions and led to homebuyers paying higher home prices, violating state and federal antitrust laws.
In the new filing, defendants in Batton 2 argued that plaintiffs in the case “lack standing” to sue the group of brokerages under federal antitrust laws. They also argued that the court lacked jurisdiction over the plaintiffs in the case.
The defendants further argued that plaintiffs failed to provide plausible evidence showing that any of the defendants entered into some kind of anticompetitive agreement with NAR or with each other. “The Complaint instead improperly lumps Defendants into a group and concludes that the group entered into a conspiracy, a type of vague ‘group pleading’ that courts have held is inadequate in an antitrust case, with no allegations as to how, when, or even if each individual Defendant allegedly entered into an anticompetitive agreement,” the motion states.
The motion also notes that the plaintiffs’ complaint is “untimely” as NAR’s rules have been known to the public since 1996, yet the plaintiffs have not acted until now.
Additionally, the motion argues that plaintiffs failed to provide enough facts that support state law claims against the defendants, like the Illinois Antitrust Act, which bars indirect purchaser class actions.
Furthermore, defendants argued that the similar claims made by plaintiffs in Batton 1 have been struck down by the court.
The Batton 1 and Batton 2 plaintiffs alleged antitrust claims against major industry players similar to those made by plaintiffs in Sitzer | Burnett, Moehrl and others, but the lawsuits have been filed by homebuyers instead of homesellers. Each case was filed by the same plaintiffs, but against different defendants.
The cases were briefly put on hold this spring while judges considered whether or not to consolidate them, along with other commission lawsuits. They were ultimately allowed to continue moving through the courts.
Howard Hanna Real Estate and Douglas Elliman were originally named as defendants in Batton 2 but were later dismissed from the cases.
HomeServices of America was dismissed from Batton 1 in February.
Both lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division in Chicago, with Judge Andrea R. Wood overseeing both cases. The discovery process for the cases is not scheduled to be completed until May 2026, according to recent filings.
