Bigger. Better. Bolder. Inman Connect is heading to San Diego. Join thousands of real estate pros, connect with the Inman Community and gain insights from hundreds of leading minds shaping the industry. If you’re ready to grow your business and invest in yourself, this is where you need to be. Go BIG in San Diego!
Seven months after a judge ordered Keller Williams to enter arbitration in a case filed by ex-CEO John Davis, the two sides can’t agree on which one is delaying arbitration.
In a new filing on Friday, Davis asked a judge overseeing the case he filed in August 2023 to find Keller Williams in contempt after he says his former employer has attempted to “bully and intimidate” him through the courts.
TAKE THE INMAN INTEL INDEX SURVEY FOR MARCH
In response, a Keller Williams spokesman said that Davis’ claims had no merit.
The updates are part of an ongoing and years-long legal tit-for-tat between Davis, other past Keller Williams executives and the brokerage.
“Defendants’ continuous delay is demonstrated by their multiple requests for an extension to file a simple status report to Magistrate Judge Ray so that an arbitrator could be selected, which Plaintiff had no choice but to oppose after multiple unreasonable delays,” Davis’s attorneys wrote in the filing.
The case is the second of two lawsuits Davis has filed against his former employer. The first began in 2022 in what Davis characterized as an effort to restore his reputation after sexual misconduct allegations against him surfaced earlier that year.
In addition to Keller Williams, Davis named as defendants Gary Keller, former KW President Josh Team, and Inga Dow — the CEO of various KW offices and the person who made the misconduct allegations.
Dow eventually dismissed her claims against Davis.
A judge sent Davis’ initial lawsuit to arbitration in March 2023.
However, in November of last year he filed a second suit. The second lawsuit reiterated some of the same claims, including that Keller Williams engaged in a “fraudulent, illegal business scheme” and that it inflated key profitability metrics. But it also made additional allegations, including accusing Gary Keller of collecting fees from company franchisees and using those fees for himself, among other things.
When a judge overseeing the second case ordered the parties to enter arbitration, Keller Williams initially welcomed the news.
“While our motion to dismiss was a procedural alternative, the court’s decision to, yet again, enforce a binding arbitration provision is supported by the law and reflects the strength of our position,” KW spokesman Darryl Frost said at the time. “It is unfortunate that judicial resources, as well as our own time and resources, were wasted to enforce what should have been a straightforward legal process. We are fully prepared to defend these baseless claims in arbitration.”
Since then, Davis says, the case has remained stalled, and both parties claim the other is using the legal filings to gain media attention. On March 7, Keller Williams asked the court to find Davis in contempt of court.
“Davis is the only party using the judicial system to tell a fictionalized story in the press,” Frost said in a statement on Monday in response to the new filing. “There is no merit to Davis’s claims, and we have no interest in sensationalizing his unfounded allegations. Our only interest is in putting an end to all of this in the forum required by the law. We are confident that Keller Williams will be vindicated in arbitration.”
Davis wrote in the filing that his legal team has tried to work with the Keller Williams team to identify an arbitrator who can oversee the process.
“Defendants claimed that their inability to submit a status report ranking arbitrators was due to Defendants traveling. Now, in this Motion, Defendants claim that their inability to respond to Plaintiffs’ multiple emails proposing arbitrators was due to the impending holidays,” Davis wrote. “These are all excuses, and an attempt to blame Plaintiff Davis for their own delay and lack of cooperation.”
Davis’ attorneys didn’t respond to a request for comment.
