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Howard Hanna Real Estate Services has accused the Missouri judge overseeing a critical commission lawsuit of having a conflict of interest and is demanding that he recuse himself from the case.
As part of the Gibson commission suit, the brokerage said in a court filing on Monday that a plaintiffs’ attorney, Matthew Dameron, donated to the campaign of Judge Stephen Bough’s wife and should not be part of the case.
The Committee to Elect Andrea Bough received a donation from Dameron and his wife in 2019. Bough was elected and currently serves on the city council in Kansas City, Missouri.
In the filing, Howard Hanna notes that Judge Bough recused himself in a case against a gun manufacturer for the same donation.
Bough offered to recuse himself in the Sitzer/Burnett lawsuit — the case in which a jury found the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and others guilty of inflating commission rates — but wound up staying on. He has not made the same offer in the Gibson suit.
Dameron was also one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Sitzer/Burnett case.
There’s no love lost between the real estate industry and Bough. The judge made a controversial decision in the Sitzer/Burnett case that industry observers believe made it easier for the jury to find NAR and the other defendants guilty.
He ruled the case “per se” rather than “rule of reason.” Per se deems certain practices inherently illegal in an antitrust lawsuit. Alternatively, rule of reason requires plaintiffs to prove the negative impacts of the practice.
There’s also the matter of Michael Ketchmark, the lead attorney in the Sitzer/Burnett case. In Monday’s court filing, Howard Hanna claims that in 2021, Ketchmark donated $103,189 to the Taxpayers Unlimited PAC, which over time contributed a total of $8,317 directly to Andrea Bough and her campaign committee.
The commission suits have roiled residential real estate professionals since NAR agreed to settle the Sitzer/Burnett case for $418 million. The settlement required Realtor-affiliated multiple listing services (MLSs) to remove blanket offers of compensation to buyer agents on the platforms, among other changes.
The verdict also spawned copycat lawsuits across the country, including the Gibson case, which was filed the same day the verdict was handed down in Sitzer/Burnett. Most of the cases have been settled, but lawsuits in which the plaintiffs are homebuyers — rather than sellers — remain outstanding.
