Gibson suit plaintiffs can notify MLSs about settlement data duties

The Gibson home seller commission lawsuit plaintiffs have been authorized to send a notice to all of the MLSs that opted into the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) commission lawsuit settlement reminding them of their responsibilities in the settlement. 

This comes after Judge Stephen Bough, who oversaw the Gibson suit and the Sitzer/Burnett lawsuit, granted a motion in late July. In the motion, the plaintiffs asked the court to enforce a provision of the settlement requiring the MLSs that opted into the settlement to allow the plaintiffs to collect their real estate listing and commission data. 

The motion came after third-party data provider Financial Business Systems (FBS), which supports MLS software platform Flexmls, refused to hand over data. According to the motion, FBS is claiming that it needs explicit permission from each MLS to hand over the data. The plaintiffs claim that FBS will not tell them which specific MLSs are refusing to give FBS the permission to do so. 

In order to enforce this provision, Judge Bough approved the plaintiffs’ plan to send a notice to all of the MLSs that opted into the settlement reminding them that they already agreed to share this data by opting into the settlement.

If an MLS would like to object to sharing its data, it has seven days to notify the court of the objection, after which both sides would present arguments to the judge to decide if the MLS must share its data. If an MLS does not object within the seven day window, the lack of response would automatically count as written permission for FBS and other third-party data providers to share the data with the plaintiffs. 

For the MLSs that file an objection, Judge Bough said the court will resolve any dispute over the enforcement of the settlement as to that particular objecting MLS. 

It is unclear when the plaintiffs will begin sending out these notices.