Two federal judges this week appeared inclined to let a parallel homebuyer antitrust case against several brokerages move toward settlement, mostly denying plaintiffs who have fought to block or consolidate the competing litigation.
The controversy came after Anywhere Real Estate struck a $9.6 million settlement in a copycat case that lawyers in the original and largest homebuyer lawsuit—known as Batton—argue is “collusive” and fails to properly compensate buyers who were allegedly harmed by inflated real estate commissions.
In hearings on consecutive days, judges in both the Tuccori v. At World Properties case and the Batton litigation denied or expressed deep skepticism toward a series of requests—including a bid to intervene in Tuccori, a request to reassign the Tuccori cases to the Batton court and a motion for a preliminary injunction.
Batton lead counsel Randall Ewing also claimed that the Tuccori plaintiffs had begun reaching out to settle parties “such as” those brokerages named in Batton. That, he said, was exactly why the court needed to act now on the class counsel question.
In the Tuccori case before Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins on Wednesday, the court denied the Batton plaintiffs’ motion to intervene without elaborating on her reasoning from the bench.
Representing Anywhere Real Estate, Attorney Aaron Daniel Van Oort offered the court a broad defense of how his client and other defendants arrived at a settlement in the case, and pushed back sharply on the Batton plaintiffs’ attempt to assert themselves into it.
Van Oort framed the litigation as the “second wave” of real estate antitrust suits, explaining that the first wave—brought by home sellers as direct purchasers of brokerage services—was largely resolved through settlements reached nearly three years ago. Those settlements, he said, covered not only direct purchaser claims but also 75%-79% of the indirect purchaser claims now at issue, which belong to homebuyers.
He argued that the Batton plaintiffs have repeatedly tried to relitigate those already-settled claims. More recently, Judge LaShonda Hunt threw out their motions to certify a class and appoint lead attorneys in the Batton case itself, finding they were attempting to pursue claims that had already been released.
“They’re trying to litigate claims that were enjoined,” Van Oort told the court.
In the separate Batton proceedings on Thursday, Hunt denied both the motion to reassign the Tuccori cases and the Batton plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, and signaled significant skepticism toward a new motion to appoint Batton plaintiffs as “interim class counsel” overseeing settlements across multiple cases.
On reassignment, Hunt said the cases are in different places procedurally and declined to pull the cases away from Jenkins.
On the preliminary injunction, Hunt said the Batton plaintiffs have an adequate remedy in the ability to object at the Tuccori fairness hearing, and denied the motion.
The interim class counsel motion drew the most skepticism.
Hunt questioned why it was being filed now, given that Tuccori has been pending since 2024. Ewing argued it was urgently needed to prevent two sets of plaintiffs’ lawyers from simultaneously negotiating with the same defendants—a dynamic he said harms the class.
Hunt said she’d allow both sides to file written arguments but wasn’t inclined to act while the Tuccori settlement process plays out.
Anywhere’s counsel also asked the court to stay all remaining litigation against it in Batton, arguing its homebuyer claims are now fully resolved between the Tuccori and Burnett settlements. Hunt encouraged the parties to confer first.
