An appellate court today denied multiple appeals that had sought to overturn the National Association of Realtors®’ (NAR) 2024 settlement agreement, putting a legal period on the end of the seven-year long commission lawsuit saga that upended real estate practices and undermined NAR’s standing in the industry.
A panel of three judges for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s approval of the settlement, denying a hodgepodge of objections, most from lawyers who filed copycat lawsuits (as well as plaintiffs behind lawsuits filed by homebuyers). The settlement saw NAR and big brokerages collectively pay over a billion dollars following a $1.8 billion verdict from a jury, as well as agree to change policies and practices.
“We are pleased with the Court’s order affirming the district court’s decision to approve the settlement agreement,” an NAR spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to work to foster fair, transparent and pro-consumer real estate markets while providing resources and value to our REALTOR® members nationwide.”
While the appeal could theoretically still go to the Supreme Court, the ruling likely ends any chance that NAR’s practice changes—most notably a ban on unilateral offers of compensation on the MLS, and mandatory buyer agreements—will be overturned.
The industry has largely adapted to those changes, after RISMedia found they initially drove commissions down.
But the verdict and subsequent settlement resulted in major shifts across the industry—particularly at NAR, as big brokers left out of the agreement decried how the lawsuits were handled, and media coverage cast the whole industry in an extremely unflattering light.
In its 35-page ruling, the Eighth Circuit said the settlement satisfied relevant federal rules, and that copycat cases used the “same factual predicate” as the original lawsuit (known as Burnett, Sitzer or Burnett/Sitzer).
The judges additionally affirmed that “practice changes address the challenged rules and attempt to remediate the harm” caused by “inflated home prices,” and addressed law professor Tanya Monestier’s allegation that the lower court ignored the opinion of the Department of Justice (DOJ), which conducted an inquiry into many of the same rules and practices named in the lawsuits.
“The district court, however, did address the DOJ entry at the fairness hearing, just not in the substantive manner that Monestier would have preferred,” they wrote. “And although the DOJ’s concerns are absent from the court order, Appellants lack convincing authority to support their assertion of error by the district court.”
That inquiry was never officially resolved, though the DOJ appeared to drop many of its previous objections under President Donald Trump’s second administration.
This is a developing story. Stay tuned to RISMedia for updates.
