KW, REMAX deals in Batton move forward; CoStar blasts Zillow 

Homebuyer plaintiffs in the commissions lawsuit known as Batton are asking the court to approve their settlements with defendants Keller Williams and REMAX a few months after the companies announced they had reached agreements in the case.

Elsewhere in the courts, CoStar Group is continuing its fight to hold Zillow accountable for allegedly misusing CoStar-watermarked photos in its online rental listings and distributing them to syndication partners.

Batton deals total nearly $30 million 

Batton plaintiffs on Tuesday filed a motion for final approval of the class action settlements reached in February with Keller Williams Realty and in March with REMAX.

The plaintiffs argued that the settlement amounts — $20 million from KW and $8.5 million from REMAX —  are both procedurally and substantively fair. 

The filing noted that the court previously said it was likely to certify the settlement classes and approve settlements after issuing notice to them, which it has now done, adding that "to date, not a single Settlement Class Member has objected or opted out of the Settlements."

Plaintiffs also submitted a separate memorandum on Tuesday supporting their motion for an award of $14 million in attorneys' fees and litigation expenses, and service awards of $5,000 each to plaintiffs Irene Kim, Michael Brace, Daniel Parsons, Anna James and Aaron Bolton; $3,500 to plaintiff James Mullis; and $2,000 each to plaintiffs Theodore Bisbicos and Mya Batton.

Previous Batton moves

The case was first filed in 2021 by homebuyers who alleged that NAR and major brokerages conspired to artificially inflate agent commissions. The defendants in Batton previously settled in commission lawsuits levied by homesellers (Sitzer/Burnett and Gibson), with REMAX agreeing in Sept. 2023 to pay $55 million and Keller Williams settling for $70 million in early 2024. Because the Batton lawsuit was initiated by homebuyers, not sellers, the brokerage companies were not exempt from litigation in that case.

Anywhere Real Estate, the remaining brokerage defendant in Batton, agreed to settle claims in a separate, but similar, homebuyer case called Tuccori through an opt-in clause, and that settlement was preliminarily approved by the court in March despite pushback from the Batton plaintiffs. 

NAR also chose to settle via Tuccori, agreeing in April to pay more than $52 millions to resolve homebuyer claims. The settlement — which the Batton plaintiffs tried to block as well — was preliminarily approved on May 26. 

CoStar keeps fighting copyright case against Zillow

In other court updates, CoStar Group on Tuesday filed an opposition to Zillow's motion to dismiss the first amended complaint in a lawsuit alleging the portal giant misused thousands of CoStar-watermarked images in its rental listings.

The case, originally filed in July 2025, was amended in March and claimed the portal was still "brazenly" using thousands of images owned by CoStar even though Zillow previously removed some of the photos in question. 

In early May, Zillow filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, arguing that CoStar had failed to state a claim for direct copyright infringement, and that landlords are responsible for uploading images to the rental portal and Zillow does not control where those images are sourced from.

In CoStar's June 9 filing, the company countered that Zillow is directly responsible for the copyright infringement because it builds webpages for rentals not currently advertised on Zillow and asks owners to "claim" the unit, placing CoStar-watermarked images in Google ads, distributing rental listings with CoStar images to partner sites and creating new copies of CoStar images to train algorithms. 

CoStar also alleges the portal benefits financially from the photos through increased sales of listing ads and increased views, which can only result from use of the copyrighted photos.

'Avoiding accountability' — or relying on 'flawed legal theories'?

CoStar Group General Counsel Gene Boxer said Zillow's motion to dismiss was a blatant attempt to "avoid accountability" for copyright infringement as Zillow aims to build up its rental listings business.

"This is consistent with the slew of misconduct for which Zillow is currently being sued in federal court, from an FTC lawsuit focused on Zillow's anticompetitive deal with Redfin, to multiple consumer and agent class actions calling out Zillow for duping consumers, diverting them to Zillow-affiliated brokers, steering them to expensive mortgages, and inflating house prices," Boxer said in a statement. "CoStar looks forward to holding Zillow to account."

When asked for comment, Zillow pointed Real Estate News to an updated blog post the company published about the lawsuit. In the post, Zillow said the amended complaint "relies on the same flawed legal theories and factual gaps as before," adding that it is asking the court to dismiss the case with prejudice.

CoStar appears to have its sights set on Zillow this week, filing an amicus brief on June 10 in the portal's lawsuit involving MRED and Compass. In the brief, CoStar accuses Zillow of anticompetitive conduct related to its Zillow Preview offering and claims the portal is trying to "weaponize the judicial system" with its request for a preliminary injunction in the case.

Veterans United seeks dismissal of amended RESPA case

A new motion to dismiss has been filed in a class-action lawsuit accusing a major lender of steering and RESPA violations.

Veterans United Home Loans argued this week that the plaintiffs — who initiated the case in February and filed an amended complaint in May — have no standing to sue "because they do not allege any concrete and particularized injury."

"The Amended Complaint also fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted," the June 9 motion said.

The filing called for the dismissal of several enrichment and state-specific claims. As far as the plaintiffs' RESPA allegations go, Veterans United argued that they "should be dismissed because RESPA exempts cooperative brokerage and referral arrangements," noting that 11 claims date beyond the one-year statute of limitations period.

The home loan company, which filed an earlier motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim in April, is now seeking to have the amended case dismissed with prejudice. If a judge chooses to do so, the case could not be refiled at a later date.