US judge dismisses nationwide renters' lawsuit over mobile home lots
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit alleging price-fixing by companies leasing land for mobile homes, citing insufficient evidence of a conspiracy.Summary
A group of mobile home lot renters filed a nationwide class action lawsuit in 2023 against Equity LifeStyle Properties, Sun Communities, RHP Properties, and others, alleging they conspired to inflate lot rents using data from Datacomp Appraisal Systems’ market reports. The plaintiffs claimed these reports contained non-public data allowing operators to coordinate rent increases, rising from around 2% before 2018 to over 9% in recent years, impacting hundreds of thousands of renters. U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama dismissed the case, finding the plaintiffs had not plausibly alleged a price-fixing agreement. While acknowledging that sharing data through Datacomp could suggest collusion, the judge questioned the plaintiffs’ market definitions and their failure to address alternative explanations for rent increases. The judge has allowed the plaintiffs to file an amended lawsuit by January 5th.
(Source：Reuters)