With mega-brokerage eXp facing multiple civil lawsuits accusing the company of being complicit in a “scheme” of druggings and sexual assaults by top recruiters, lawyers representing the company butted heads with plaintiffs on multiple issues at a court hearing for two of the cases on Tuesday, Oct. 8.
Several women (and most recently, shareholders) have accused top executives at the company, including founder and CEO Glenn Sanford, of protecting and covering for high-ranking influencers, who allegedly drugged and raped women at company events over a period spanning multiple years. One lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial next year.
At the hearing Tuesday—after some discussion about protocol—a major issue addressed was the categorizing of complaints as sexual assault or sexual harassment, and the overall umbrella of sexual misconduct. The plaintiffs’ lawyers are seeking to compel eXp to share documents and reports related to the alleged incidents, and presented the idea that the complaints be rewritten under the overall umbrella of sexual misconduct, as categorizing between assault and harassment has complications in terms of discovery.
The plaintiffs argued that trying to categorize complaints under just the banners of harassment or assault could lead to certain incidents that are applicable to the case being left out of discovery. Plaintiff lawyer Andrea Hirsch said that they’ve seen this in other litigation, and that the “line is very blurry” when it comes to determining whether a pattern is sexual harassment or sexual assault, and added that “just because (the defense) calls it one thing, we may call it another.”
Meanwhile, William Pallares, a lawyer representing eXp, countered that the company believes the term sexual harassment should be inclusive of assault claims, and this would present all necessary complaints.
Judge Alicia Rosenberg said that “the labels are not as important as having a common understanding of what it is,” meaning what each complaint alleges, its relevance to the case and where it falls on the scale of responsiveness. She said that sexual misconduct could be considered too broad of a term to pull complaints for discovery, as this could include comments and jokes.
In her order following the hearing, Rosenberg said explicitly that eXp must produce any complaint made to the company “that alleges physical touching; attempted physical touching; threatened physical touching whether the threat is verbal or nonverbal; propositioning; or disrobing.”
The timeframe of lodged complaints was another larger issue that the defense brought forward. They argued that the cap on complaints filed to eXp to be presented in discovery should be 2021.
Plaintiff lawyer Brooke Cohen countered that eXp was still investigating complaints made after 2021, claiming that she has obtained complaints of women who were allegedly assaulted in 2023, and that 2021 is an “arbitrary date that doesn’t work.”
Rosenberg said that to her knowledge, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals doesn’t limit timeframe “except in terms of reasonableness,” and that the timeframe could be expanded out to 2023 to present a larger and more complete picture for complaints filed. She also told the defense they could file a motion for protective order within the next 21 days if they continued to disagree with this decision.
Facebook Workplace Chat has been an issue of contention throughout the discovery process as well, as the defense have stated that they cannot pull the data from the platform without having to pay for a specific service, which may be too costly to justify.
Plaintiffs argued against this, however, as the platform is eXp’s main form of communication and it needs to be provided as it would have relevant information to the case, especially in terms of Sanford’s data.
Rosenberg concluded that eXp and Sanford would need to provide the data by October 25, or file a motion for protective order or a separate motion on discrete issues if they feel they cannot get it.
A new piece of evidence was also revealed during the hearing: a video of one of the alleged victims—recorded by a defendant—of her being allegedly harassed/assaulted while drugged. Cohen brought the conversation of the video forward, stating that the content is sensitive and requesting it be kept confidential to attorney and client eyes only, and that it be protected.
Rosenberg did say that while she is sympathetic to the request, the video may have to be shown to further eyes later on—but that bridge would be crossed when it comes time for trial. She did state that the video must be kept secure by attorneys on their devices.
In response to the hearing, eXp released the following statement:
“We take our responsibility to foster a safe and inclusive environment very seriously. eXp Realty has zero tolerance for abuse, harassment, or misconduct of any kind—including by the independent real estate agents who use our services. The claims in this case stem from alleged assaults by independent real estate agents—which we handled with seriousness and deep respect, in line with our company values, policies, and procedures. The company will continue to do its best to ensure we create a safe environment that provides an opportunity for our employees and agents to succeed.”
