The Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR) today welcomed a ruling by U.S. District Judge James R. Nowlin dissolving the court’s preliminary injunction in the case of Austin Board of Realtors and Austin/Central Texas Realty Information Service vs. e-Realty, Inc.

David Foster, president of the Austin Board of Realtors, said he believes that recent changes in ABoR’s policy regarding access to and use of it’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) - the focus of the suit - should bring the litigation to an end, just as it led to a lifting of the injunction.

“Now that we have changed our policy regarding the use of this information, making it available for all of our members to post on their web sites, we are dropping all of our claims in this matter and see no reason why the case can’t be dismissed or settled,” Foster said.

The litigation in began when ABoR filed suit against eRealty for infringement of the copyright to the MLS data. MLS is a compilation of information regarding residential real estate for sale in the Austin area. At the time, it was a violation of MLS rules to publish the information for the use of non-ABoR members. ERealty posted the data on its website.

Judge Nowlin issued the injunction that has just been lifted in order to prevent AboR from terminating eRealty’s access to the MLS until the case was adjudicated.

However, everything changed in May of this year when the National Association of Realtors (NAR) officially adopted an Internet Data Display (IDD) Policy that required local chapters such as ABoR to amend their policies to allow members to post the listings on their websites.

“When that happened, the point became moot as far as we are concerned,” Foster said. “ Because eRealty and all other ABoR members can post this information on their websites the whole basis for litigation has disappeared. The policy change at the national level took away the entire controversy.”

As soon as ABoR adopted the new national policy, the board dropped its appeal of the court’s order granting the injunction.

“There is no point in appealing an injunction that precludes ABoR from enforcing a rule it no longer desires to enforce,” said ABoR attorney Patrick Keel.

At the time ABoR asked Judge Nowlin to dissolve the injunction, the board’s attorneys also asked the court to dismiss all claims it has made in the case as well as counter claims made by eRealty. ERealty filed objections to both motions and prevailed in preventing the entire case from being dismissed.

Foster said he is surprised eRealty still wants the case to go forward given the court’s declaration that, “Simply put, eRealty is no longer faced with a rule that prohibits its method of doing business. On the contrary, ABOR members are now specifically authorized to publish MLS data via their websites.”

Published: September 14, 2000

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