A New York homeowner claimed text messages sent by an associate KW broker amounted to an “invasion of her privacy.” She has now dropped her case.
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Keller Williams scored a legal victory in court last week when a homeowner plaintiff moved to withdraw her lawsuit alleging telemarketing violations.
Sydney Thayer filed her class action lawsuit against the franchiser in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York on June 12, saying unsolicited texts she received from an associate broker at the franchiser amounted to a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
Thayer, who lives in Rochester, New York, said she received texts between April 2024 and March 2025, despite her number being on the National Do Not Call Registry. Screenshots included in the complaint showed that an associate broker told Thayer she received her information from Zillow and asked if Thayer was interested in her real estate services.
However, on July 10, Thayer moved to dismiss her own case. Her brief legal filing didn’t explain Thayer’s motivation for the move.
The judge overseeing the suit ordered the case to be dismissed the next day.
The dismissal was first reported by Real Estate News.
Thayer’s move to dismiss came a week after attorneys for Keller Williams asked for more time to respond to Thayer’s complaint in court. The new deadline for a response from the franchiser was Aug. 8.
The new lawsuit was the latest in a series of complaints targeting the company’s telemarketing tactics.
In January 2023, Keller Williams Realty agreed to pay $40 million to settle a class action lawsuit that alleged the franchisor’s agents made unsolicited, pre-recorded calls to consumers without their consent, including calls to consumers on the National Do Not Call Registry.
Months after that settlement, Keller Williams was hit with another, similar class action suit filed by a Las Vegas resident.
A slate of attorneys sued the company in 2019 for similar conduct.
