Legal Case Summaries
A recent RESPA enforcement action by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has caused concerns about the Bureau's interpretation of RESPA, including the section 8(c)(2) exemption that allows fair market value payments to settlement service providers for services provided.
Court rules that failure to attach a dual agency consent form to purchase and sale agreement did not invalidate the contract, despite the fact that the contract’s terms required that the form be attached.
Supreme Court of the United States rules that an Arizona town unconstitutionally regulated signs by their content and thus violated the First Amendment.
In the final piece of the litigation involving the website neighborcity.com (operated by the American Home Realty Network), the court entered judgment in favor of NAR over allegations of antitrust violations.
In a long running legal battle over patent infringement allegations, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a California federal court’s decision that Move’s websites, including REALTOR®.com, do not infringe Real Estate Alliance, Ltd.’s patents.
Court rules that broker’s cancelation of commercial listing agreement was proper in light of the fact that the entity with whom Broker had entered listing agreement did not have authority to sell the property.
Despite salesperson’s failure to comply with brokerage’s contractual requirements upon his departure from brokerage, Ohio court holds that broker’s failure to release salesperson’s listings to salesperson’s new broker was breach of independent contractor agreement.
Massachusetts’s highest court finds that license law allowed broker to properly classify salespeople as independent contractors.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board upholds NAR’s opposition against a member’s trademark application for REALT OR REALTY based on NAR’s trademark rights in the REALTOR® trademarks.
In an important decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit allowed a business to challenge a U.S. Army Corps’ assertion of Clean Water Act jurisdiction without the business have to make a costly application for a permit.
