Anywhere Real Estate has agreed to a $20 million settlement to end a long-running Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuit that was on the brink of a jury trial.
From that fund, $12.6 million would be distributed to approximately 298,494 class members, according to case filings this week in a California federal court. Filings suggest each class member can receive approximately $281.80 if the claim rate for the settlement is 15%.
The accusations stem from an alleged over 700,000 phone calls made by agents with the real estate giant's Coldwell Banker franchise between 2015 and 2020.
Attorneys for Anywhere, in agreeing to the proposed settlement, argued plaintiffs would have faced either class decertification or a loss on trial, based on errors by the plaintiffs' expert analyst. The lawsuit refers to Anywhere by its former Realogy name.
"It would be imprudent to take any risk of an annihilating statutory-damages judgment, given that the real estate brokerage industry is in the third year of the worst real estate market in half a century," wrote counsel for Anywhere.
As fines for TCPA violations start at $500, plaintiffs said damages could have exceeded hundreds of millions of dollars. They also however cite that courts have previously reduced per-call awards by as much as 98%.
A preliminary approval for the settlement is scheduled for Feb. 27.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, the company said it's pleased to put the case behind it, and the agreement is "consistent with our financial planning."
An attorney for Anywhere deferred comment to the company, while counsel for plaintiffs didn't respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The settlement comes ahead of changes to the TCPA by the Federal Trade Commission
Coldwell Banker agents are accused of using programs such as Mojo, PhoneBurner and Storm Dialer to contact consumers on the National Do Not Call Registry, and leaving prerecorded messages for others. The lawsuit's NDNC class spans 131,892 telephone numbers, while the prerecorded message class includes 201,001 numbers.
The Realogy lawsuit was first filed in 2018, and a jury trial was finally slated to begin Feb. 3. Defendants argued for class decertification last year, suggesting there were class members who had no valid claims. Some had business relationships with brokerages; others were not on the NDNC registry; and more never received a call, they claim.
"At trial, Verkhovskaya's methodology would have been revealed to be of "questionable reliability and validity," wrote counsel for Anywhere in a brief this week, referring to plaintiffs' retained expert analyst. A federal judge deferred a final ruling on decertification until the trial.
Plaintiffs were at risk of seeing their claims dismissed, the parties wrote, or endure a prolonged appeals process.
Attorneys have proposed $6 million of the settlement fund go to five law firms which worked on the case, and $892,000 for litigation costs. The settlement notice and administration will cost no more than $475,000, and named class representatives are eligible for individual $5,000 awards.
Filings also reference other TCPA payouts, including a $40 million settlement
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