HomeServices of America and two other Berkshire subsidiaries have petitioned the Supreme Court to reject a ruling that let Missouri-area home sellers join as a class in the landmark Sitzer-Burnett case, which accused brokerages of artificially inflating commissions for home sales. According to the petition, HomeServices said it never should have faced a trial as the sellers had agreed to arbitrate disputes out of court.
“Our appeal is rooted in the principles of the Federal Arbitration Act, which clearly mandates that arbitration agreements be honored as they are written,” a spokesperson for HomeServices said in a statement.
In September, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it was correct for the judge hearing the Missouri case and not an arbitrator to decide whether the contract dispute was subject to arbitration, according to Reuters. HomeServices said the appeals court’s “erroneous decision to usurp the arbitrator’s authority subjected HomeServices to an unwarranted class trial.”
Four of the nine justices on the Supreme Court must vote to accept a case and the court only accepts some 100-150 out of 7,000 cases per year.