Top Agent Network, Inc. v. National Association of Realtors
Opinion
Trial Court Opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
TOP AGENT NETWORK, INC., Case No. 20-cv-03198-VC
Plaintiff,
ORDER OF DISMISSAL WITH
v. LEAVE TO AMEND
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF Re: Dkt. No. 66 REALTORS, et al., Defendants.
The motion to dismiss is granted. Assuming that TAN has correctly defined the relevant market, it has not stated a claim for violation of the antitrust laws. There are several, related issues with the complaint: 1. The defendants in this case—NAR and its local affiliate SFAR—are associations that consist of many individual members. An association whose mission is to enable a more efficient market by serving the interests of many different people must have a certain amount of room to impose reasonable ground rules that prevent a minority of members from benefitting at the undue expense of the majority. See Northwest Wholesale Stationers v. Pacific Stationary, 472 U.S. 284, 296 (1985). The antitrust analysis set forth in the current complaint does not account for this reality. Instead, the complaint treats NAR as if it is a singular corporation with the singular interest in profiting from the product it…