Less than a week after an amended complaint added a slew of new plaintiffs to the Davis homebuyer commission lawsuit, the judge overseeing the case has denied defendant Hanna Holdings’ motion to dismiss or transfer the suit.
Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued her ruling on Monday. Hanna Holdings, the parent company of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, filed its motion to dismiss the suit in early August. In the motion, the brokerage firm also requested that if the court would not dismiss the suit, that it should relocate the suit to the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Initially filed in late May by plaintiff Scott Davis, the suit took issue with the National Association of Realtors’ Participation Rule, which required listing brokers to make a blanket offer of compensation to buyer brokers in order to list a property on a Realtor association-affiliated MLS. The plaintiffs allege that due to this rule, they paid elevated commission rates, increasing the overall cost of their transaction.
Earlier this month, Davis — who is represented by attorneys at Korein Tillery, the same firm that filed the two Batton homebuyer commission lawsuits — filed an amended complaint that added 25 new plaintiffs to the suit. Many of these plaintiffs are also plaintiffs in the Batton and Lutz homebuyer commission lawsuits.
Howard Hanna did not return a request for comment.
