News Corp., the parent company of Realtor.com owner Move, and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) may have been dismissed from the Bandy suit, but the plaintiffs aren’t letting them go without a fight.
On Monday, James Bandy, the lead plaintiff in the Bandy lawsuit, which alleges that Move sold agents fake leads, filed an appeal of Judge Stanley Blumenfeld’s dismissal of NAR, News Corp., and Move subsidiaries Move Sales, Inc., OpCity, Inc., OpCity Acquisition, LLC, RIN, and RealSelect. The appeal was filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
These defendants were dismissed without prejudice, which means Bandy could file another suit against these defendants with the same claims. Judge Blumenfeld dismissed these parties in early March after reviewing their motions to dismiss the suit, which were filed in January of 2025.
In his notice of appeal, Bandy included a copy of Judge Blumenfeld’s ruling in which he outlined his reasoning behind the dismissal.
According to the ruling, the Move subsidiary defendants were dismissed for lack of standing, while News Corp. and NAR were dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction.
For the Move subsidiary defendants, in their motion to dismiss the first amended complaint (FAC), they argued that the plaintiffs “failed to adequately allege that the plaintiffs’ injuries are fairly traceable to” their conduct.
“The Court agrees and finds that the FAC lacks sufficient allegations connecting Plaintiffs’ injuries to any conduct by the subsidiary defendants,” the ruling states.
Additionally, Judge Blumenfeld noted that the plaintiffs only refer to these defendants in the introductory portion of the FAC.
News Corp. and NAR’s dismissals were determined by their failure to pass the specific jurisdiction test used by the Ninth Circuit, according to Judge Blumenfeld.
In the ruling Judge Blumenfeld wrote that News Corp.’s and NAR’s relationships with Move, which is based in California, does not establish that the court has jurisdiction over them.
“In contending otherwise, Plaintiffs argue that News Corp. and NAR are subject to the Court’s jurisdiction because they are engaged in a ‘civil conspiracy’ with Move,” the ruling states. “Though the Ninth Circuit has not decided the issue, it has remarked that there is ‘a great deal of doubt’ about the viability of the theory. In light of the cited cases and the absence of any contrary authority or analysis from Plaintiffs on this issue, the Court rejects their conspiracy-based argument.”
As Bandy’s appeal pends, his original suit will continue on, as Move was not dismissed. However, Judge Blumenfeld ordered Move and the plaintiffs to arbitrate their claims as they had agreed to arbitrate any potential claims with Move when they signed up for its lead generation service as part of the terms and conditions.
Originally filed in August 2024 by Bandy, along with 12 other real estate professional plaintiffs, the suit, which sought class action status, alleges that Move made misrepresentations regarding the quality of the leads provided to Connections Plus subscribers.
