Keller Williams is asking the court to hold Davis in contempt, remove a legal filing detailing alleged misconduct from the public docket and order him to pay the defendants’ attorneys’ fees.
Bigger. Better. Bolder. Inman Connect is heading to San Diego. Join thousands of real estate pros, connect with the Inman Community and gain insights from hundreds of leading minds shaping the industry. If you’re ready to grow your business and invest in yourself, this is where you need to be. Go BIG in San Diego!
Keller Williams co-founder Gary Keller wants former KW CEO John Davis to pay for what he says are “baseless attacks” against him, his company and his family members, according to a court filing on Friday.
In an April 4 filing responding to Davis’s allegations that his former employer has attempted to “bully and intimidate” him through the courts, Keller and Keller Williams re-iterated their request that the court hold Davis in contempt, remove the filing containing the alleged attacks from the public docket and order Davis to pay their attorneys’ fees and expenses.
John Davis
“Plaintiffs’ attempts to use the docket as their own publisher … while asserting new and baseless claims should be rebuked, and Defendants should be awarded their fees and expenses for defending against this behavior,” attorneys for the defendants wrote in the Friday filing.
The Jan. 27 filing that Keller Williams would prefer no longer see the light of day alleges a Keller Mortgage employee was fired after reporting sexual misconduct by John Keller, KW’s executive vice chairman and Gary Keller’s son. According to that filing, the allegations were allegedly covered up by general counsel Stacie Herron and Gary Keller paid off the accuser with $1 million of his own money, while he gave Herron a $1 million bonus and a promotion to interim COO for her work in the alleged cover-up.
The filing also claims Gary Keller, John Keller, Stacie Herron, Josh Team and Mark Willis “misappropriated, diverted and embezzled” millions in fees through KWx and accuses Gary Keller’s wife, Mary Pfluger, of giving Southwest Regional Director Jonathan Dupree an alleged off-the-books check to compensate him for going along with a cap-cutting directive handed down by Keller that allegedly led to losses in his region.
After the filing was made public, Keller Williams characterized Davis’s allegations as “untrue personal attacks,” “baseless and false claims,” and a continuation of “his public smear campaign against Keller Williams and its leadership.”
The allegations were included in a demand for arbitration by Davis when the parties weren’t able to agree upon an arbitrator. Although Davis’s attorneys allegedly agreed to withdraw the filing from the docket after an arbitrator was chosen, that arbitrator was appointed on March 28 and the filing has not been withdrawn. The defendants’ attorneys maintain Davis submitted the filing to gain media attention.
“There remains no logical purpose for including the draft Demand for Arbitration in a filing other than to hide behind the judicial proceedings privilege and publicize Plaintiffs’ salacious claims through the Court,” the defendants’ attorneys wrote.
“Using the Court as a microphone is improper and certainly does not evince ‘good faith,’” they added.
Davis’s own legal battle against the real estate franchise first began because sexual misconduct allegations came to light against him in 2022, years after he left the firm in 2019. Those misconduct allegations have since been dismissed. Davis sued and a judge sent the suit to arbitration in March 2023, but in November 2024, Davis filed this second suit.
In their motion to hold Davis in contempt, the defendants argued Davis filed the second suit in an attempt to avoid arbitrating the first suit and has allegedly used various tactics to delay arbitrating the second suit, allegedly violating a court order.
“Despite Plaintiff Davis’s argument to the contrary, he is the party responsible for the significant delay in the administration of this case and the drain of both the Court’s and the parties’ resources,” the latest filing contends.
Meanwhile, Davis alleges that it is Keller Williams and the other defendants who are delaying arbitration and seeking media attention.
It will be up to Judge Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to decide who ultimately prevails.
Read Keller Williams’ filing below (re-load page if document is not visible):
Email Andrea V. Brambila.
