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Each week on The Download, Inman’s Christy Murdock takes a deeper look at the top-read stories of the week to give you what you’ll need to meet Monday head-on. This week: Catch up with the “mother of all lawsuits” and all of the other so-called copycats that have followed in the wake of Sitzer | Burnett.
At the end of the Sitzer | Burnett trial, there was a sense of relief, despite the verdict and its attendant financial reward. “That was bad, but at least it’s over.”
Well, buckle up, buttercup, because the hits just keep on coming in the form of a series of new lawsuits beginning just minutes after the end of Sitzer | Burnett. First it was additional brokerages and other states, then rumors about conversations between the DOJ and the plaintiffs’ attorney from Sitzer and then — wait for it — “the mother of all commission suits.”
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“Litigation on the initial cases moved slowly through the courts for the first few years. But since late October, when a jury sided with homeseller-plaintiffs in one of the highest profile suits, consumers have filed a string of new cases in various different states,” according to Jim Dalrymple’s roundup of the ongoing and newly filed suits.
“The jury verdict, in other words, appears to have unleashed the floodgates for additional antitrust cases. And while some critics have denigrated such cases as ‘copycat lawsuits,’ that does not mean they may not end up having an impact — the recent verdict came in a case that was once called a copycat suit, but is now sending shockwaves through the industry.”
Whatever you call them, this string of lawsuits will continue to cause headaches and…