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Crye-Leike is joining a growing chorus of real estate-related firms calling for the removal of a judge overseeing an antitrust commission lawsuit known as Gibson, with the company on Tuesday signing a motion for recusal brought by Hanna Holdings and HomeServices of America parent Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
The company did not explain its reasoning in the legal filing, instead opting to tell the court that “Crye-Leike expressly adopts and incorporates by reference the arguments” made by Hanna Holdings in its original motion.
According to Hanna — and BHE, which also joined Hanna’s motion — Judge Stephen R. Bough, who has been overseeing the Gibson case in Missouri, should recuse himself over political donations the plaintiffs’ attorneys made to Bough’s wife’s previous city council campaigns.
As recently as Monday, the firms continued to argue the donations gave “the appearance of impropriety” and that refusing to recuse would create such an appearance.
Judge Stephen R. Bough
Hanna and BHE are also attempting to remove Gibson from under Bough’s thumb in another way: by requesting that it be transferred to their respective home states of Pennsylvania or Iowa.
Bough also continues to oversee the predecessor to the Gibson case, Sitzer | Burnett , which was filed in 2019 and went to trial in 2023. Settlements in that case, including a nationwide $418 million deal with the National Association of Realtors, have received final approval from the district court but are under appeal in the Eight Circuit.
Last month, Bough rejected Crye-Leike’s claim that it is made up of six distinct companies that each should be covered under the NAR settlement and consequently denied Crye-Leike’s request to pause the proceeding of the Gibson suit against the company.
Like Sitzer | Burnett, the Gibson suit challenges a now-defunct NAR rule requiring listing brokers to offer compensation to buyer brokers in order to submit a listing to a multiple listing service, which the plaintiffs allege violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Also on Tuesday, attorneys for the Gibson homeseller plaintiffs and defendant EXIT Realty informed the court that they had “reached an agreement to settle all claims asserted against EXIT Realty in this action as part of a proposed nationwide class settlement.” They asked Bough to stay the case as to EXIT Realty and told him the plaintiffs would file a motion for preliminary approval of the proposed settlement.
Several other defendants have settled the Gibson case, including Compass, Douglas Elliman, The Real Brokerage, @properties, Redfin, Realty ONE Group, Engel & Völkers, HomeSmart, United Real Estate, NextHome, the Keyes Company, John L. Scott Real Estate Affiliates, The K Company Realty, Real Estate One and Baird & Warner.
Bough is also currently weighing claims by the Gibson plaintiffs that eXp and Weichert engaged in a “reverse auction” to reach their proposed settlements in a separate, similar case known as Hooper. A “reverse auction” is a legal strategy in which a defendant negotiates a settlement with attorneys who are willing to accept settlement amounts less than attorneys in a separate case.
Last month, the Georgia judge overseeing the Hooper case rebuffed the Gibson plaintiffs’ bid to have the case transferred to Bough.
It will be up to Bough whether the Gibson case and all its complexities remains under his purview.
