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Real estate brokerage Crye-Leike is making yet another bid to get out from under the thumb of a Missouri judge in a major commission lawsuit known as Gibson.
Crye-Leike joined fellow defendants Hanna Holdings and Berkshire Hathaway Energy on Tuesday in filing a motion to transfer the case from Judge Stephen R. Bough in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri to its home turf.
For Crye-Leike, which is based in Memphis, that means the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.
This follows a March 27 request from Hanna to have the court reconsider its motion to transfer the case to the Western District of Pennsylvania, where Hanna is based, and an April 7 request from BHE to transfer the case to the Southern District of Iowa, where BHE is based.
Crye-Leike’s reasons for transferring the case echo those of its fellow defendants. The firm argues that it has no documents, offices, agents, real estate transactions, or witnesses related to Crye-Leike or the case against the company in Missouri.
“By contrast, almost all known current employees, independent contractor agents, and many former employees related to Crye-Leike, Inc. reside in and around Memphis, including northern Mississippi,” attorneys for Crye-Leike wrote in the filing.
“The employees of Crye-Leike Franchise, Inc. are located in and around Memphis. The documents and electronic data, transaction data, and records of Crye-Leike, Inc. and Crye-Leike Franchise, Inc. are located in and around Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee.”
“When few or none of the witnesses, documents, records and data related to the litigation exist in the current forum district, a court should transfer the case to a district where a substantial proportion of where the witnesses reside and a substantial portion of the information is located,” the attorneys added.
Judge Stephen R. Bough
Last month, Bough rejected Crye-Leike’s claim that it is made up of six distinct companies and that each should be covered under a National Association of Realtors (NAR) settlement. Bough denied Crye-Leike’s request to pause the proceeding of the Gibson suit against the company.
Earlier this month, Crye-Leike joined Hanna and BHE in calling for Bough’s recusal over political donations the plaintiffs’ attorneys made to Bough’s wife’s previous city council campaigns. Bough refused.
Bough must once again decide whether the Gibson case remains under his purview as he considers the three competing motions to transfer from the remaining defendants who have yet to settle.
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, Baird & Warner and EXIT Realty.
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.
Read Crye-Leike’s filing (re-load page if document is not visible):
