The plaintiffs in the fake leads lawsuit involving Move, News Corp. and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) have announced that they’ll be filing a motion for the court to reconsider its ruling on the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration as early as Aug. 8.
Lead plaintiff James Bandy and 12 other named plaintiffs are all independent real estate agents. The lawsuit was initially filed in August 2024 in Los Angeles County Superior Court and claims that the defendants defrauded agents by selling them fake leads.
In addition to the motion to reconsider, the plaintiffs said they would be filing a motion for remand with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to facilitate the district court’s jurisdiction to hear the motion to reconsider.
The plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of the suit in March 2025. Judge Stanley Blumenfeld granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, finding that there was a lack of standing for the Move subsidiary defendants, and a lack of personal jurisdiction for News Corp. and NAR. The defendants filed their motions to dismiss the suit in January 2025.
According to the notice — which the plaintiffs say the motion for reconsideration will closely reflect — they are seeking on order for “setting aside or vacating the dismissal of the matter and (after reconsideration) denying Defendants’ Motion to Compel Arbitration.”
The plaintiffs claim that their decision to file the motion for reconsideration is based on the defendants’ inability at the time of the motion to compel arbitration being filed to proceed with arbitrations with a designated arbitrator, the American Arbitration Association (AAA).
“In addition, relief is sought for the failure of Defendants to designate the applicable rules therefore on the website referenced by Defendants as the basis for compelling arbitration,” the notice states.
In order for the district court to rule on this, the plaintiffs are asking for a stay of their appeal with Ninth Circuit, as well as a stay or extension of the briefing schedule in that appeal.
According to the filing, while the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration was granted, the defendants “were banned from proceeding with arbitrations by AAA due to an unrelated fee issue.”
“Furthermore, in directing Plaintiffs to the AAA website, Defendants failed to identify the applicable rules for arbitrating disputes. Plaintiffs contend that the real estate agents would have been entitled to have matters heard under the Consumer Rules and that real estate brokers would be entitled to have matters heard under the Commercial Rules,” the filing states.
As a result of the defendants’ inability to proceed with arbitration, the plaintiffs are arguing that the motion to compel arbitration should now be denied. They say that after the order was granted, the plaintiffs learned that the defendants were ineligible to participate in arbitrations with the AAA.
If the court does not deny the motion, the plaintiffs believe the defendants should be required to pay for the costs of arbitration.
“Arbitration has become big businesses and arbitrators can charge hundreds of dollars per hour in addition to the administrative fees,” the filing states. “Large corporations, like Defendants, benefit immensely because they do not have such concerns, can drive such costs up significantly and simply wait for individuals to run out of money. This is a key reason that in the employment context, the employer must pay for arbitration.”
According to the plaintiffs, as they are individual real estate agents with limited resources, “it is inherently unfair for them to have to choose between pursuing their claims and feeding their families.”
“As Defendants’ arbitration provision contained in the ‘terms and conditions’ is non-specific on the arbitration fees and costs … and which party is to bear such costs; an ambiguity is created in this regard,” the filing states. “Defendants have utilized their pre-designated, non-negotiable terms and conditions and such ambiguity should be construed against Defendants.”
The defendants did not return HousingWire’s requests for comment.
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