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The judge who oversaw multiple commission lawsuits over the past several years recused herself from the cases on Wednesday after she said she discovered a conflict of interest.
Judge Andrea R. Wood
“It has come to my attention that the spouse of a person related to me within the third degree of relationship is a partner in a law firm representing a defendant in this case,” Judge Andrea Wood wrote in a surprise filing on Wednesday afternoon.
Wood didn’t specify which attorney created the conflict of interest in the one-page filing.
“My relationship with this relative has not affected or impacted any decision in this case,” Wood continued. “Nonetheless, the relationship requires recusal under the Code of Conduct for United States Judges.”
Wood, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, oversaw the case known as Moehrl since March 2019. She was assigned to oversee a case known as Batton I in March 2022 and another known as Batton II in January 2024.
Those cases are separate from Sitzer | Burnett, which went to trial last year and resulted in a jury verdict that upended the real estate industry.
Wood recused herself from each of the cases, and a new judge will be assigned to the cases.
During her time overseeing the cases, Wood waded through hundreds of court filings by the battling parties, in which homesellers and homebuyers targeted the way real estate agents traditionally got paid.
Moehrl alleged that some NAR rules — including one, known as the Cooperative Compensation Rule or the Participation Rule, that requires listing brokers to offer buyer brokers a commission in order to list a property in a Realtor-affiliated multiple listing service (MLS) — violate the Sherman Antitrust Act by inflating seller costs.
The case resulted in the settlements of some of each of the defendants, including Anywhere, RE/MAX, Keller Williams, HomeServices of America and the National Association of Realtors. The companies and organization settled the cases jointly, along with the Sitzer | Burnett case, and agents across the country have already started to operate under the rules created by the settlements.
As part of the settlement agreements, which have yet to be formally approved, the parties agreed to enact sweeping changes to the way real estate agents and their clients approach agent compensation. All references to offers of compensation from sellers to buyer brokers were removed from multiple listing services across the country by Aug. 17.
Buyer’s agents also must obtain written buyer representation agreements before touring homes with clients, and those agreements must specify how much the agent will be paid for the transaction.
The sprawling list of related lawsuits led to nearly $1 billion in settlement agreements being paid to plaintiffs who file claims. The attorneys who represented the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuits will receive about one third of the final amount, if approved.
