RE/MAX, Keller Williams, Anywhere denied in efforts to dismiss Batton 1 commission lawsuit

The taste of victory was short lived for RE/MAX, Keller Williams and Anywhere. After successfully getting the Batton 1 homebuyer commission lawsuit stayed in October as a result of the defendants having been granted final approval of their home seller commission lawsuit settlements, the three national brokerages were not as lucky with their motions to dismiss.

In early October, Chicago-based U.S. District Court Judge LaShonda Hunt — who is overseeing the two Batton suits after Judge Andrea Wood recused herself in early September — took the defendants’ motions to dismiss due to lack of personal jurisdiction under advisement. But at a hearing on Friday, she denied the motions.

According to Hunt’s ruling, “under longstanding precedent, due process allows the exercise of personal jurisdiction so long ‘the defendants have sufficient ‘minimum contacts’ with Illinois such that the maintenance of the suit ‘does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice,’” and that personal jurisdiction can “be general, where a defendant has ‘continuous and systematic general business contacts’ in the forum state or specific, ‘where (1) the defendant has purposefully directed his activities at the forum state or purposefully availed himself of the privilege of conducting business in that state, and (2) the alleged injury arises out of the defendant’s forum related activities.’”

Hunt noted that the three defendants filed initial motions to dismiss the suit in April 2021, but only HomeServices of America — which was dismissed from the suit in February 2024 — filed a motion to dismiss for personal jurisdiction. Additionally, the judge noted that it was not until after HomeServices was dismissed did the other defendants choose this strategy.

“At no point did Moving Defendants seek to amend their own dismissal motion to add the personal jurisdiction defense, join HomeServices Defendants’ motion, or otherwise assert or preserve the defense, despite being on notice that HomeServices Defendants had asserted the defense as of at least September 2022,” Hunt wrote.

Since the three defendants did not include this argument in their initial motions to dismiss, Hunt felt that the court does not need to “consider whether Plaintiffs have met their burden to establish personal jurisdiction over Moving Defendant.”

The defendants filed their motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction in April 2024. The brokerages claimed that the plaintiffs and the court lacked personal jurisdiction because the firms were not headquartered or incorporated in Illinois. Additionally, they noted that none of the plaintiffs purchased homes in Illinois.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is the final defendant in the Batton 1 suit, which was filed in January 2021.

In the Batton 2 suit, which was filed in November 2023, the plaintiffs have moved to file an amended complaint. They are looking to add 25 new class representatives and remove four state law claims from the suit. Thee plaintiffs claim that the removal of the state law claims are not “futile” and that the new plaintiffs “plead identical claims to those that Plaintiffs have already pled and which have been upheld by this Court.”

Additionally, they note that the introduction of new plaintiffs “will not cause undue prejudice or delay because Defendants have not yet issued any discovery demands and the Court has not yet entered any discovery schedule.”

The defendants in the Batton 2 suit include Compass, eXp World Holdings, Redfin, Weichert Realtors and United Real Estate. Howard Hanna and Douglas Elliman were named as defendants when the suit was originally filed but have since been dismissed.

The remaining defendants in Batton 2 each have pending motions to dismiss that Hunt has taken under advisement.