Compass granted expedited discovery in Zillow suit

With the preliminary injunction, Compass is hoping to stop Zillow from implementing and enforcing its listing access standards, which ban listings that are not entered into the MLS within 24 hours of public marketing. However, according to a Compass spokesperson, some listings held by its agents received violation notices from Zillow after being entered into their local MLS within 24 hours of marketing as coming soons and not active listings.

The parties have until next Monday to file a joint letter that outlines the agreed upon narrow scope of expert discovery and a revised schedule of deadlines and hearing dates. A conference will then be held next Wednesday to discuss the proposed scope and schedule of the discovery. 

In a letter to the judge filed on Saturday, the parties stated that Zillow was only willing to “review for responsiveness” 10,000 to 12,000 documents. According to the letter, this document limit includes both documents that include Compass’s proposed search terms and the document attached to or embedded within those documents. In contrast, Compass says its current search term proposal hits on 15,000 documents, but if the attached or embedded documents are included this figure balloons to 39,000 documents. Despite these differences the parties said they hope to negotiate to a 10,000 to 15,000 document range. 

Due to the compressed discovery timeline, Zillow told the court that depending on how large Compass’s discovery request is, it may not be able to meet the production timeframes. Due to this, Zillow is asking the court to “reaffirm its guidance that the parties aim for a review population numbering in the thousands, not tens of thousands.”

Zillow also argues that it should not be required to produce its board presentations or board minutes during expedited discovery.

“These documents are only marginally relevant to the issues raised in Compass’s PI motion, and any potentially relevant portions of these documents are largely duplicative of other documents that Zillow has already agreed to produce,” the letter states. 

Compass, however, argues that the materials are “highly relevant” for its claims and defenses and that Zillow has “not articulated a sufficient reason to withhold these materials.”

In addition to board meeting materials, Compass is also requesting the Zillow produce data from between Jan. 1, 2024, and June 23, 2025, related to user data, traffic, visitors and visits, time spent on the site and all third-party data sets that Zillow possesses or uses, including Comscore data. 

The letter also addresses depositions and expert discovery, both of which Zillow does not feel are necessary as it does not believe an evidentiary hearing is necessary to resolve Compass’s motion for preliminary injunction. 

Additionally, both parties have “interrogatories” they are asking for. Compass is asking for a list of “every discussion, message, and phone call” between Zillow and Redfin, and Zillow and eXp between August 1, 2024, and June 23, 2025. For its part, Zillow is asking Compass to identify all of its listings that were part of the three-phase marketing plan that were removed from Zillow or any other listing platform due to Zillow’s listing access standards policy. Zillow also wants Compass to “describe in detail” all of the analyses performed regarding the impact of the three-phase marketing plan on home sales, commissions and Compass’s revenue, and to identify all the harms Compass has alleged it will suffer as a result of Zillow’s policy. 

The letter included three options for proposed discovery schedules. During a July 8 hearing, the court requested a discovery of “several thousands of documents, but not tens of thousands,” but it may have to refine that scope during the hearing next Wednesday.