HousingWireHousingWire
U.S. District Court Judge Mark H. Cohen is standing by his denial of the Gibson commission lawsuit plaintiffs’ motion to intervene in the Hooper commission lawsuit.
On Wednesday, Judge Cohen denied the Gibson plaintiffs’ motion to file a surreply in the Hooper suit relating to the Hooper plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary approval of their settlements with eXp World Holdings and Weichert Realtors. This ruling came less than a week after Judge Cohen denied the Gibson plaintiffs’ motion to intervene in the suit.
“Movants are not currently parties and have no standing to respond to motions filed in this case,” Judge Cohen wrote in his order. “Moreover, as made clear in this Court’s Order denying intervention, Movants will have an opportunity to any and all proposed settlements that potentially affect their rights as part of the Rule 23 class action fairness hearing.”
In their proposed surreply, the Gibson plaintiffs claimed they should be allowed to file the reply due to “specific factual misstatements” in the Hooper plaintiffs’ filing. Additionally, they claimed that they had proof the defendants conducted “reverse auctions” to obtain their settlement agreements, which the Gibson plaintiffs have previously referred to as “sweetheart deals.”
According to the proposed surreply, during a deposition Weichert’s general counsel, John Lanahan, “confirmed that Weichert knew Plaintiffs’ initial settlement demand was based on adapting Gibson Plaintiffs’ settlement with Real Brokerage to Weichert’s sales volume, and that Plaintiffs and Weichert ultimately settled for a substantial discount even from this number.”
eXp settled the commission lawsuits with the Hooper plaintiffs for $34 million in October and Weichert for $8.5 million in November. The parties filed for the preliminary approval of their settlements in early January 2025.
