The Keller Williams telemarketing lawsuit that put the brokerage in the headlines, DeShay v. Keller Williams Realty, Inc., ended in a $40 million class action settlement approved by a Florida state court in 2023. That case accused Keller Williams agents of making unsolicited robocalls and sending marketing texts to consumers on the National Do Not Call Registry, in violation of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). It was not the last such case. Additional TCPA lawsuits against Keller Williams have been filed in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New York, and Texas since the settlement, and courts are still working out how far the franchisor’s liability extends for calls placed by agents it treats as independent contractors.
The DeShay Settlement
Beverly DeShay filed her complaint in the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit in Indian River County, Florida. She alleged that Keller Williams agents made unsolicited prerecorded calls and sent text messages to consumers who had never consented, including people on the Do Not Call Registry, and that Keller Williams effectively supplied a telemarketing playbook through its training and coaching.
The settlement class was broad. It covered anyone in the United States who, during the class period, received two or more calls or texts from Keller Williams or its affiliated franchisees, market centers, or agents on a number listed on the National Do Not Call Registry for at least 31 days. It also covered anyone who received one or more calls placed with a prerecorded voice, a cloud-based dialing platform, or an automatic telephone dialing system.
A Florida state court granted preliminary approval in January 2023 and issued a final approval order later that year. Keller Williams denied wrongdoing. About two million people were eligible to file claims, with individual payments capped at $20. DeShay received a $5,000 service payment. Attorneys’ fees, costs, and administration ran roughly $10.2 million, and $7.8 million was set aside for changes in business practices. The claims deadline was March 7, 2023.
Compliance Changes Keller Williams Agreed To
The settlement required Keller Williams to do more than write a check. The company agreed to create a dedicated TCPA task force, raise the visibility of its existing TCPA and Do Not Call resource page on its internal KW Connect platform so franchisees and their agents could find it more easily, and distribute additional compliance materials to franchisees for use with their independent contractor agents.
Asked in mid-2023 whether those measures were in place, Keller Williams spokesperson Darryl Frost told Inman the company was “complying with our settlement obligations” but declined to say more. New TCPA suits filed in 2023, 2024, and 2025 have raised doubts about how well the reforms have worked.
Lawsuits Filed After the Settlement
Several cases have followed DeShay, some against Keller Williams directly and some targeting specific franchise offices.
Garvey v. Keller Williams (D. Nev., June 2023). Las Vegas resident Wayan Garvey filed a putative class action alleging that Keller Williams and one of its agents continued to place prerecorded telemarketing calls and texts to people on the Do Not Call Registry. The complaint alleged the company still provided agents with a web-hosted mass marketing platform and used third-party integrations like Landvoice Data to build calling lists.
Havassy v. Keller Williams (E.D. Pa., April 2024). A federal judge denied Keller Williams’ motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and ruled the company could be held responsible for TCPA-violating conduct by its agents. The court pointed to agents’ use of the Keller Williams name, logo, and domain in their communications, which the court said enhanced the company’s brand and profits, and to Keller Williams’ mandated system governing advertising, promotional programs, and telemarketing training.
Nicotra v. Bayside NY Homes LLC (E.D.N.Y., 2024). This case focused on a specific Keller Williams Realty Landmark franchise in New York, alleging that agent Deirdre Folan sent repeated unsolicited marketing texts to people on the Do Not Call Registry between 2020 and 2025. A $400,000 settlement received preliminary approval on December 15, 2025. The claims deadline is March 16, 2026, and a final approval hearing is set for April 15, 2026. The class covers individuals associated with 1,019 phone numbers identified in records from the lead-management tool Follow Up Boss. Angeion Group is administering the settlement.
Thayer v. Keller Williams (W.D.N.Y., June 2025). Sydney Thayer filed a putative class action on June 12, 2025, alleging she received unsolicited marketing texts between April 2024 and March 2025 despite being on the Do Not Call Registry. The complaint sought up to $1,500 per violation and estimated aggregate class damages above $5 million. Keller Williams said it was “reviewing the matter” and noted that the allegations involved an agent affiliated with an independently owned franchisee. Thayer filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on July 10, 2025, and the court closed the case the next day, before Keller Williams had filed an answer.
A separate class action filed in Texas in 2024 was dismissed earlier in 2025, and a telemarketing suit was also filed against the company in Pennsylvania in 2023.
Can Keller Williams Be Held Responsible for Its Agents’ Calls?
The recurring legal question in these cases is whether Keller Williams, as a franchisor, can be held liable under the TCPA for calls and texts sent by agents who are technically independent contractors affiliated with independently owned franchise offices. Keller Williams has consistently argued it has no involvement in the specific messages at issue and that agents operate independently.
Courts have split based on the facts alleged. In Hayhurst v. Keller Williams Realty, Inc. (M.D.N.C. 2020), a federal court denied Keller Williams’ motion to dismiss, finding the complaint “robustly asserted control by KW over its agents” and that the franchisor allegedly supplied specific call scripts. Havassy reached a similar result in 2024, citing the company’s mandated system governing advertising and telemarketing training.
Other brokerages have won on similar arguments. In DeClements v. RE/MAX LLC (D. Colo. 2020), a federal judge dismissed TCPA claims against RE/MAX, holding that merely promoting a lead-generation strategy was not enough to establish the control needed for vicarious liability. The court distinguished Hayhurst, where the franchisor allegedly supplied scripts and directed how calls were made. In Usanovic v. Americana, L.L.C. (D. Nev. 2025), a court dismissed TCPA claims against a Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices franchise, ruling that providing training or recommending dialer vendors does not create an agency relationship when agents are not required to use those tools.
The pattern in the rulings: outcomes hinge on how much control the franchisor actually exercises over the telemarketing itself. Providing scripts, mandating specific systems, or directing how calls are placed can be enough to expose the franchisor. General training and brand licensing usually are not.
Why the Franchise Structure Keeps Producing These Cases
Keller Williams operates through a network of independently owned “Market Centers,” each run by a franchisee that keeps operational autonomy while using the company’s proprietary technology platform (KW Command), training programs, and branding. Agents affiliated with the market centers are classified as independent contractors, not employees of the franchisor.
That structure sits at the center of the telemarketing litigation. Keller Williams supplies centralized technology, coaching, and marketing frameworks that agents use to generate leads, while describing those agents as independent operators whose specific outreach is not directed by the franchisor. Plaintiffs argue the training programs, marketing plans, and technology integrations give the company enough involvement to make it responsible. Keller Williams’ own franchise disclosure page acknowledges that either the company or “a representative from one of our franchisees” may contact individuals using “automated systems or automated telephone dialing equipment, text messages, emails and/or artificial or pre-recorded voice messages.”
How Keller Williams Compares to Other Brokerages
Keller Williams is not alone. Anywhere Real Estate (formerly Realogy Holdings Corp.), the parent company of Coldwell Banker, agreed to a $20 million settlement in early 2025 to resolve a class action alleging that Coldwell Banker agents made more than 700,000 unsolicited calls between 2015 and 2020 using auto-dialing tools including Mojo, PhoneBurner, and Storm Dialer. Of that amount, $12.6 million was designated for roughly 298,494 class members. Exp Realty reached a $13 million TCPA agreement in 2022.
The math explains why these cases keep landing. The TCPA lets individuals recover $500 per violation, with damages tripled to $1,500 per call or text if the violation is found willful. When a national network of agents collectively makes millions of contacts, even a small share of noncompliant calls can generate very large aggregate exposure. If you received calls or texts from a Keller Williams agent while on the Do Not Call Registry, the pending Nicotra settlement in the Eastern District of New York is the active matter with a claim window, closing March 16, 2026.