Rhonda Burnett v. Spring Way Center, LLC

United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 24-3444 ___________________________ Rhonda Burnett; Jerod Breit; Jeremy Keel; Frances Harvey; Hollee Ellis Plaintiffs - Appellees v. National Association of Realtors; Home Services of America Defendants - Appellees Keller Williams Realty, Inc.; Realogy Holdings Corp. Defendants BHH Affiliates, LLC; HSF Affiliates, LLC Defendants - Appellees RE/MAX LLC Defendant v. Brown Harris Stevens; The Agency Intervenors - Appellees v. Spring Way Center, LLC; Nancy Wehrheim; John Moratis; Nancy Moratis;  Danielle Kay; Jessie Kay; Kaitlyn Slavic; Maria Iannome Objectors - Appellants ___________________________ No. 24-3450 ___________________________ Rhonda Burnett; Jerod Breit; Jeremy Keel; Frances Harvey; Hollee Ellis Plaintiffs - Appellees v. National Association of Realtors; Home Services of America Defendants - Appellees Keller Williams Realty, Inc.; Realogy Holdings Corp. Defendants BHH Affiliates, LLC; HSF Affiliates, LLC Defendants - Appellees RE/MAX LLC Defendant v. Brown Harris Stevens; The Agency Intervenors - Appellees v. -2-  Monty March Objector - Appellant ___________________________ No. 24-3451 ___________________________ Rhonda Burnett; Jerod Breit; Jeremy Keel; Frances Harvey; Hollee Ellis Plaintiffs - Appellees v. National Association of Realtors; Home Services of America Defendants - Appellees Realogy Holdings Corp. Defendant BHH Affiliates, LLC; HSF Affiliates, LLC Defendants - Appellees RE/MAX LLC; Keller Williams Realty, Inc. Defendants v. Brown Harris Stevens; The Agency Intervenors - Appellees v. -3-  Robert Friedman Objector - Appellant ___________________________ No. 24-3527 ___________________________ Rhonda Burnett; Jerod Breit; Jeremy Keel; Frances Harvey; Hollee Ellis Plaintiffs - Appellees v. National Association of Realtors; Home Services of America Defendants - Appellees Keller Williams Realty, Inc.; Realogy Holdings Corp. Defendants BHH Affiliates, LLC; HSF Affiliates, LLC Defendants - Appellees RE/MAX LLC Defendant v. Brown Harris Stevens; The Agency Intervenors - Appellees v. -4-  Benny D. Cheatham; Robert Douglass; Douglas Fender; Dena Fender Objectors - Appellants ___________________________ No. 24-3585 ___________________________ Rhonda Burnett; Jerod Breit; Jeremy Keel; Frances Harvey; Hollee Ellis Plaintiffs - Appellees v. National Association of Realtors; Home Services of America Defendants - Appellees Keller Williams Realty, Inc.; Realogy Holdings Corp. Defendants BHH Affiliates, LLC; HSF Affiliates, LLC Defendants - Appellees RE/MAX LLC Defendant v. Brown Harris Stevens; The Agency Intervenors - Appellees v. -5-  Tanya Monestier Interested party - Appellant ------------------------------ Manhattan Institute Amicus on Behalf of Appellant(s) ___________________________ No. 24-3619 ___________________________ Rhonda Burnett; Jerod Breit; Jeremy Keel; Frances Harvey; Hollee Ellis Plaintiffs - Appellees v. National Association of Realtors; Home Services of America Defendants - Appellees Keller Williams Realty, Inc.; Realogy Holdings Corp. Defendants BHH Affiliates, LLC; HSF Affiliates, LLC Defendants - Appellees RE/MAX LLC Defendant v. -6-  Brown Harris Stevens; The Agency Intervenors - Appellees v. James Mullis Objector - Appellant ___________________________ No. 24-3621 ___________________________ Rhonda Burnett; Jerod Breit; Jeremy Keel; Frances Harvey; Hollee Ellis Plaintiffs - Appellees v. National Association of Realtors; Home Services of America Defendants - Appellees Keller Williams Realty, Inc.; Realogy Holdings Corp. Defendants BHH Affiliates, LLC; HSF Affiliates, LLC Defendants - Appellees RE/MAX LLC Defendant v. -7-  Brown Harris Stevens; The Agency Intervenors - Appellees v. Rosalie Doyle; Jessica Winters; John Guerra Interested parties - Appellants ____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City ____________ Submitted: January 14, 2026 Filed: August 19, 2026 ____________ Before L.R. SMITH, ERICKSON, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. ____________ L.R. SMITH, Circuit Judge. These consolidated appeals seek to undo the nationwide class-action settlement of claims addressing an alleged conspiracy to inflate buyer-broker commissions for home sales involving multiple listing services. We affirm. I. Background A. Brokerage Arrangement For decades, many American homeowners who wished to sell their houses did so through a real estate agent with a Multiple Listing Service (MLS). “An MLS is a centralized database of properties which allows real estate brokers and agents to identify homes for sale within a defined geographic region.” R. Doc. 741, at 3. Real estate brokers and their affiliates or agents may access these shared catalogs if they are in compliance with the MLS’s rules. -8-  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is the national trade association for licensed real estate agents and operates through a network of local associations. Most MLSs in the country are affiliated with NAR, and NAR provides rules that affiliated MLSs must follow. One such rule, the Cooperative Compensation Rule, required the seller’s broker to offer the buyer’s broker a commission as a condition of using one of NAR’s MLSs. NAR first adopted this rule in 1996, and all NAR- affiliated MLSs became obligated to enforce it as a condition of their affiliation. Because NAR-affiliated MLSs dominate the market for residential real estate in the United States, the rule had nationwide reach. “According to NAR, 92% of sellers sold their home with the assistance of a real estate broker in 2017, and 87% of buyers purchased their home with the assistance of a real estate broker in 2017.” R. Doc. 759, at 18; see R. Doc. 776, at 27 (admission by NAR “that the NAR 2017 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers reported that 91% of home sellers worked with a real estate agent to sell their home, and that 87% of buyers recently purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker”). Pursuant to the rule, brokers were obligated to make the commission offer upfront in the MLS listing itself before any buyer appeared. In practice, sellers paid a combined commission of roughly 5–6% of the sale price, split roughly evenly between the seller’s broker and the buyer’s broker. The buyer’s broker thus received compensation from the seller, even though the buyer’s broker represented the buyer’s interests. Brokers’ fees increased prices for both buyers and sellers. In April 2019, a group of Missouri home sellers, aligned with lead plaintiff Rhonda Burnett (collectively “Plaintiffs”), filed a class action in federal court in the Western District of Missouri. The lawsuit named NAR and four other large real estate brokerage franchisors—HomeServices of America and its subsidiaries BHH Affiliates and HSF Affiliates (collectively, “HomeServices”); Anywhere Real Estate; RE/MAX; and Keller Williams—as defendants (collectively, “Defendants”). Plaintiffs alleged a price-fixing conspiracy under Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. -9-  Plaintiffs’ theory was that NAR and the brokerages collectively avoided price competition and commission negotiation with buyers by requiring sellers to offer buyer-broker commissions in the MLSs’ listings. Buyers “believed (mistakenly) that the[ir] . . . broker was working on their behalf,” R. Doc. 759, at 21, and for free, but in fact the buyer’s agent received her pay from the seller, who baked the cost into the price of the home. This scheme, Plaintiffs argued, artificially inflated the commissions paid to buyer brokers and, by extension, inflated the cost of selling and buying a home for every seller and buyer in America. This original class was certified as Missouri home sellers who used one of a handful of specified MLSs in Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri. The case went to trial in October 2023. A jury found Defendants liable and awarded $1.785 billion in damages subject to trebling under the relevant antitrust laws. Defendants filed post-trial motions challenging almost every facet of the case: antitrust standing, the conspiracy finding, the damages methodology, and the sufficiency of the evidence. Those motions remained pending. B. Similar Lawsuits The initial Burnett verdict triggered similar cases nationwide. A parallel class action called Moehrl v. NAR, Case No. 1:19-cv-01610 (N.D. Ill.), had been pending since 2019 in the Northern District of Illinois on behalf of sellers who used 20 other MLSs nationally. But new lawsuits sought to represent sellers nationwide; these included Gibson v. NAR, Case No. 4:23-cv-00788 (W.D. Mo.), and Umpa v. NAR, Case No. 4:23-cv-00945 (W.D. Mo.), both filed in the Western District of Missouri. Another spate of cases sprung up in New York focused on the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), a separate trade association that runs its own MLS—the Residential Listing Service (RLS)—exclusively in New York City. REBNY operates independently of NAR and under its own similar rules. -10-  C. Settlement During the post-trial motions period, NAR and Defendants negotiated with the various plaintiffs in all the cases—Burnett, Moehrl, Gibson, and Umpa—seeking a global resolution. 1 These resolutions included the REBNY claims. Both sides faced ample uncertainty: Defendants risked an affirmed verdict and potential bankruptcy, and Plaintiffs risked a reversal on the verdict or appeal on any number of grounds. Concerns about Defendants’ ability to pay also motivated negotiations. In early 2024, the parties here reached a settlement agreement (Settlement). The Settlement has two components. First, NAR agreed to pay $418 million into a non-reversionary fund. HomeServices agreed separately to pay $250 million. Other brokerage firms, including Brown Harris Stevens and The Agency (collectively, the New York firms), could opt into the Settlement. Opting-in firms would agree to practice changes and, if their total sales volume exceeded $2 billion, make a cash contribution. The total settlement fund across all Defendants exceeded $1 billion. The Settlement set attorneys’ fees for Plaintiffs at $333 million, one-third of the fund. Second, NAR agreed to practice changes; specifically, to eliminate the Cooperative Compensation Rule. Under the Settlement, sellers will no longer be obligated to offer compensation to buyer brokers in MLS listings. And offers of buyer-broker compensation, if made at all, will need to be disclosed to and approved by sellers in advance. Buyer brokers must enter into written agreements with buyers before touring homes, and these agreements must disclose the broker’s fee, identify 1 Several Appellants filed motions to take judicial notice of documents in the related Gibson case, including an order from the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation denying transfer of a motion to centralize the related litigations with Burnett in the Western District of Missouri. We deny these motions. For the reasons discussed in this opinion, we conclude that the district court did not err by finding that these cases share a factual predicate. We also conclude that the district court committed no error in ordering in-person appearance at the fairness hearing. The exhibits accompanying the motions change neither our analysis nor the outcomes of this appeal. -11- the source of payment, and bar buyer broker’s fees from exceeding the buyer’s agreed sum. Additionally, buyer brokers can no longer steer buyers toward listings based on commission level. Finally, brokers must tell clients that commissions are negotiable. In exchange, Defendants receive a settlement that “is nationwide and releases claims arising from sales of homes listed on NAR and non-REALTOR® MLSs, including all claims on behalf of Class Members, as sellers, buyers, or otherwise, arising from the same factual predicate.” R. Doc. 1622, at 6. The new class covers essentially any person who sold a home listed on any MLS in the United States between approximately 2014 and 2024. The breadth of the release encompasses home sellers’ claims against opt-in brokerages like Brown Harris Stevens, whose members operated under REBNY rules, not NAR rules. D. Objections and Fairness Hearing The settlement administrator sent notice to tens of millions of class members through mail, email, and media, reaching over 99% of the class. Of the millions reached, 39 opted out and 36 filed formal objections. Over two million claims were submitted. The district court 2 set a fairness hearing in Kansas City, Missouri, for November 26, 2024, two days before Thanksgiving. Several weeks before the hearing, the district court issued an order requiring all objectors and their attorneys to appear in person at the hearing. Failure to appear would result in their objections being waived. Some objectors could not or chose not to travel to Kansas City on that schedule. Tanya Monestier, one such objector, did not appear; her objection was stricken. Shortly before the hearing, the district court instructed counsel to submit a proposed order approving the settlement; Plaintiffs submitted the draft, but objectors were not notified. 2 The Honorable Stephen R. Bough, United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri. -12-  The next day, the district court entered an 88-page final approval order. The order certified a nationwide settlement class and approved the settlement as fair, reasonable, and adequate under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The order also addressed each objection on the merits, including those from objectors who did not appear at the hearing. The district court also simultaneously denied a motion to intervene filed by Rosalie Doyle, a NAR member who was not part of the plaintiff class and sought to challenge the settlement’s financial burden on low-volume realtors. Final judgment was entered January 15, 2025. E. Parties on Appeal Seven entities and individuals (collectively, “Appellants”) now appeal the final judgment. 3 Defending the settlement are Plaintiff-Appellees: the Burnett class (Burnett), NAR, HomeServices, and Intervenors-Appellees the New York REBNY firms. F. Arguments on Appeal Appellants raise numerous arguments on appeal. Spring Way argues that (1) the class expansion is legally unprecedented and impermissible; (2) the Settlement is grossly inadequate on its face; and (3) no distribution method was ever established. 3 First, Spring Way Center, LLC, et al. (Spring Way)—a group of objectors that includes a Pennsylvania-area real estate entity and individual home sellers—had pending antitrust claims in a separate Pennsylvania action that would be extinguished by the Settlement. Spring Way argues that its claims are improperly released. Second, Monty March, a Manhattan home seller, had claims pending in New York challenging REBNY rules. March argues that his claims arise from a different conspiracy entirely and should not be released. Third, Robert Friedman, a Brooklyn home seller with REBNY-based claims pending in New York, argues that his claims are improperly released. Fourth, Benny Cheatham, et al. (Cheatham) is a group of South Carolina objectors who challenge the release of their claims. Fifth, Monestier challenges several facets of the Settlement and the district court’s process. Sixth, James Mullis, an Illinois home seller and home buyer, principally argues that home buyer and home seller claims differ factually. Seventh, Doyle, John Guerra, and Jessica Winters (collectively, “Doyle”) are NAR members who sought to intervene but were denied. -13-  Appellants March and Friedman argue that the REBNY/New York claims do not share a factual predicate with the NAR claims. Appellant Friedman additionally argues that (1) the district court misapplied the factual predicate test and (2) Rule 23(e)(2) was not satisfied as to REBNY class members. Appellant Cheatham argues that (1) the opt-in brokerages did not comply with the Settlement’s own deadlines and that the releases are therefore invalid; (2) small brokerages received releases without providing consideration; and (3) HomeServices franchisees were released without paying anything or making any commitments. Appellant Monestier argues that (1) the district court lacked Article III jurisdiction to approve the injunctive relief and thus the Settlement must fail; (2) the agreed-to practice changes provide no real benefit to the class; (3) the district court violated Rule 23 and due process by adopting Plaintiffs’ ghostwritten order without independent judgment; (4) the district court improperly struck Monestier’s objection and the case should be reassigned on remand; (5) the district court ignored the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) statement of interest; and (6) the $333 million attorneys’ fee award is excessive. Appellant Mullis argues that (1) the Settlement improperly extinguishes home buyer claims without adequate representation or any consideration; (2) the 2018 amendments to Rule 23(e)(2) required independent analysis of intraclass equity that the district court failed to perform; (3) the buyer claims do not share the same factual predicate as the seller claims; (4) class counsel inadequately represented buyers, or, in the alternative, that the release does not reach Mullis’s buyer claims at all; and (5) the district court failed to apply the 2018 Rule 23(e)(2) factors. Appellant Doyle argues that (1) the district court denied intervention using the wrong legal standards because it confused intervenors with class objectors; (2) the -14- district court should have granted intervention as of right; (3) Doyle’s motion to intervene was timely; (4) the practice changes violate antitrust law; (5) the anti- disclosure rules favor large firms and are thus anticompetitive; (6) post- implementation market data shows that the practice changes have failed; and (7) the district court erroneously retained jurisdiction for an improper purpose. Appellants Spring Way, March, Friedman, and Cheatham all additionally argue that the fairness hearing was constitutionally and procedurally inadequate. For all the reasons discussed below, we affirm. II. Discussion A. Standard of Review “We generally review for abuse of discretion a district court’s decision to approve a global settlement over objections. Only upon the clear showing that the district court abused its discretion will this court intervene to set aside a judicially approved class action settlement.” Marshall v. Nat’l Football League, 787 F.3d 502, 508 (8th Cir. 2015) (citation modified). “Great weight is accorded [the district court’s] views because [it] is exposed to the litigants, and their strategies, positions and proofs. [It] is aware of the expense and possible legal bars to success.” Van Horn v. Trickey, 840 F.2d 604, 606–07 (8th Cir. 1988) (citation modified). 4 We review for abuse of discretion a district court’s decision to strike an objection for noncompliance with a court order. See In re T-Mobile Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., 111 F.4th 849, 855–57 (8th Cir. 2024) (finding district court “abused its discretion” for striking objection because the district court determined “that [the objector] and her attorneys are serial objectors”). 4 Appellants argue that the district court largely adopted the proposed order without change. Although district courts are to avoid “verbatim adoption” of the parties’ proposed order, adopting vast swaths of the order does not change our standard of review. Petrovic v. Amoco Oil Co., 200 F.3d 1140, 1150 (8th Cir. 1999). -15-  B. Injunctive Relief Standing Although “[f]ederal courts are not roving commissions licensed to sally forth each day looking for wrongs to right,” Margolin v. NAIJ, 146 S. Ct. 1285, 1288 (2026) (per curiam) (citation modified), “[w]e have an obligation to assure ourselves of litigants’ standing under Article III,” Frank v. Gaos, 586 U.S. 485, 492 (2019) (per curiam) (citation modified). On appeal, Monestier argues for the first time that “[t]he district court did not have the authority to approve the injunctive relief in this case because plaintiffs lacked Article III standing.” Monestier’s Br. 22; see generally TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 431 (2021) (“Standing is not dispensed in gross; rather, plaintiffs must demonstrate standing . . . for each form of relief that they seek,” including both “injunctive relief and damages.”). 5 We disagree. For the class to have standing here, “at least one” named class representative must have standing. In re SuperValu, Inc., 870 F.3d 763, 768 (8th Cir. 2017). For that named representative to have standing, they must “demonstrate,” for their requested injunctive relief, “(i) that [they] ha[ve] suffered or likely will suffer an injury in fact, (ii) that the injury likely was caused or will be caused by the defendant, and (iii) that the injury likely would be redressed by the requested judicial relief.” FDA v. All. for Hippocratic Med., 602 U.S. 367, 380 (2024). 5 We deny Monestier’s motion to strike. Monestier raised for the first time on appeal that the named plaintiffs lack standing. We have an unwaivable obligation to review standing. See Gaos, 586 U.S. at 492. To help facilitate our review of standing, we may allow some supplementation of the record. See Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Strommen, 114 F.4th 939, 943 (8th Cir. 2024) (allowing supplemental evidence establishing standing filed after oral argument); Worth v. Jacobson, 108 F.4th 677, 686 (8th Cir. 2024) (allowing supplementation of the record). In any event, Appellants raised no new arguments in their primary brief; they merely supplemented the brief with additional record citations and governing law to help facilitate the review of standing. -16-  Monestier asserts that because “[t]he class here consists of home sellers overcharged in connection with past home sales,” they cannot show the necessary “concrete, prospective harm . . . to pursue injunctive relief.” Monestier’s Br. 24 (citation modified). We disagree. The record before us reflects an ongoing, continuous injury among the named plaintiffs who determine standing for the class—namely, that home prices remain inflated absent practice changes adopted by the Defendants. Inflated prices harm home sellers and home buyers by channeling funds from the sellers and buyers to agents. Avoiding the harm requires—in markets saturated by agents benefiting from the conspiratorial rules—incurring such costs as self-listing and selling the home or attempting to find an agent not affiliated with the rules. Thus, either “the threatened injury is ‘certainly impending,’ or there is a ‘substantial risk’ that the harm will occur.” Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149, 158 (2014) (quoting Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 414 n.5 (2013)). Plaintiff-Appellees “show a real . . . threat that [they] will be wronged again;” consequently, they have standing to pursue injunctive relief. Rinne v. Camden Cnty., 65 F.4th 378, 386 (8th Cir. 2023). As for redress, the practice changes address the challenged rules and attempt to remediate the harm. Cf. Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env’t Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 185–86 (2000) (noting that “a sanction that effectively abates [the harmful] conduct and prevents its recurrence provides a form of redress”). 6 Thus, we conclude that Appellants have an injury-in-fact and that the requested relief addresses it. C. Settlement Fairness, Reasonableness, and Adequacy Class-action settlements must be “fair, reasonable, and adequate.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2). Appellants argue, in various forms, that the Settlement violates Rule 23. Spring Way asserts that the district court erred by expanding the settlement class to a nationwide scope and that the Settlement is flatly inadequate on its face. Mullis 6 The redress provided by the practice changes thus also provides a benefit to the class—reduced costs—despite Monestier’s additional, tangential argument that the Settlement provides no benefit to class members. -17- argues that the Settlement disposes of home buyer claims without adequate representation by class representatives and counsel. March and Freidman similarly contend that the REBNY/New York claims do not share a factual predicate with the Missouri claims, so the Settlement is unfair and inadequate; Mullis says the same for buyer claims. Friedman, building on this argument, challenges the district court’s application of the factual predicate test and concludes that the expanded class violates Rule 23 as to REBNY class members. Cheatham adds that small brokerages and HomeServices franchisees that provided no consideration, whether financial or otherwise, to the Settlement nonetheless received releases, rendering the Settlement unfair to class members harmed by those entities. Monestier adds that the district court violated Rule 23 and due process by insufficiently modifying the settlement order proposed by the parties. Mullis also argues that the 2018 amendments to Rule 23 require a more particularized analysis of intraclass equity that the district court failed to oblige. In sum, Appellants collectively challenge the district court’s interpretation and application of Rule 23. We, however, conclude that the district court reasonably determined that the Settlement satisfies Rule 23. 1. The Fairness Factors: Van Horn and Rule 23 Several Appellants argue that the district court applied the Rule 23 factors incorrectly or applied the wrong set of factors. We disagree. Historically, we have required district courts to consider a number of factors in determining whether a settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate: [1] the merits of the plaintiff’s case, weighed against the terms of the settlement; [2] the defendant’s financial condition; [3] the complexity and expense of further litigation; and [4] the amount of opposition to the settlement. Van Horn, 840 F.2d at 607 (citing Grunin v. Int’l House of Pancakes, 513 F.2d 114, 124 (8th Cir. 1975)). However, a 2018 amendment to Rule 23 introduced four -18- different enumerated factors for courts to consider. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2). According to amended Rule 23, the district court must now consider[] whether: (A) the class representatives and class counsel have adequately represented the class; (B) the proposal was negotiated at arm’s length; (C) the relief provided for the class is adequate, taking into account: (i) the costs, risks, and delay of trial and appeal; (ii) the effectiveness of any proposed method of distributing relief to the class, including the method of processing class-member claims; (iii) the terms of any proposed award of attorney’s fees, including timing of payment; and (iv) any agreement required to be identified under Rule 23(e)(3); and (D) the proposal treats class members equitably relative to each other. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2). In the commentary to the 2018 Rule 23 amendment, the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules recognized that the various courts of appeals in this country have developed their “own vocabulary for expressing” the fairness, reasonableness, and adequacy of “a proposed class-action settlement,” such as our own Van Horn factors. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 2018 advisory committee’s note to 2018 amend. The Advisory Committee also observes that “goal of [the] amendment is not to displace any -19- [extant] factor, but rather to focus the court and the lawyers on the core concerns of procedure and substance that should guide the decision whether to approve the proposal.” Id. The Committee’s commentary also highlights that a bulky, multi- factored test can distract[] attention from the central concerns that inform the settlement- review process. A circuit’s list might include a dozen or more separately articulated factors. Some of those factors—perhaps many— may not be relevant to a particular case or settlement proposal. Those that are relevant may be more or less important to the particular case. Yet counsel and courts may feel it necessary to address every factor on a given circuit’s list in every case. The sheer number of factors can distract both the court and the parties from the central concerns that bear on review under Rule 23(e)(2). This amendment therefore directs the parties to present the settlement to the court in terms of a shorter list of core concerns, by focusing on the primary procedural considerations and substantive qualities that should always matter to the decision whether to approve the proposal. Id. (emphasis added). Previously, this circuit used only four factors. Those four do differ from the new enumerated factors in amended Rule 23. Compare Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e), with Van Horn, 840 F.2d at 607. Interestingly, some district courts in this circuit have added the new factors to the preexisting ones—in varying degrees of rigor—to class- action settlements. See Swinton v. SquareTrade, Inc., 454 F. Supp. 3d 848, 861 (S.D. Iowa 2020) (determining that analysis of Rule 23(e)(2) factor “necessarily include[s] analysis of two related Van Horn [f]actors”); Anderson v. Travelex Ins. Servs. Inc., No. 8:18-CV-362, 2021 WL 4307093, at *2 (D. Neb. Sept. 22, 2021) (evaluating settlement under Rule 23 and applying our circuit’s factors); Cleveland v. Whirlpool Corp., No. 20-CV-1906, 2022 WL 2256353, at *4–5 (D. Minn. June 23, 2022) (same)); see also Briseño v. Henderson, 998 F.3d 1014, 1021 (9th Cir. 2021) (reversing a class-action settlement approval because the district court “stopped short of conducting a Rule 23(e) inquiry[,] [and] [i]nstead[] it merely held that there -20- is substantial overlap between Rule 23(e)(2) factors and [the Ninth Circuit’s] factors” (citation modified)); In re Lumber Liquidators Chinese-Manufactured Flooring Prods. Mktg., Sales Practices & Prods. Liab. Litig., 952 F.3d 471, 484 n.8. (4th Cir. 2020) (acknowledging that Rule 23(e)(2) was amended to specify factors for evaluating class settlements; noting that the new factors “almost completely overlap” with the existing Fourth Circuit factors; and holding that the outcome would be the same under either set of factors). Rule 23 unambiguously directs that courts consider its factors. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2) (“If the [class-action settlement] proposal would bind class members, the court may approve it only after . . . considering” the enumerated factors.). The district court here correctly identified Rule 23 as providing the authoritative set of factors to consider when judging the fairness, reasonableness, and adequacy of a class-action settlement agreement. See generally Grunin, 513 F.2d at 123 (“Under Rule 23(e) the district court acts as a fiduciary who must serve as a guardian of the rights of absent class members.”); Joseph M. McLaughlin, McLaughlin on Class Actions § 6:4 (Nov. 2025 update) (“Appellate review of settlement approvals is increasingly characterized by (i) more in-depth, less deferential scrutiny, and (ii) reversals where the district court approves a class settlement in which it has presumed the fairness of the settlement because of the presence [of] arm’s-length negotiation or otherwise without explicitly considering the standards of Rule 23(e)(2)(A)–(D).” (emphasis added)). The district court also considered the Rule 23(e) factors alongside and within the Van Horn factors, despite only needing to consider the Rule 23(e) factors. This was not required, but neither was it erroneous, as Appellants argue. We thus take no issue with the district court’s fairness analysis. 7 7 Appellant Mullis also argues that the district court failed to “pay close attention to the release language,” Mullis’s Br. 25, and investigate “whether the scope of the release may affect class members in different ways that bear on the apportionment of relief,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 2018 advisory committee’s note to 2018 amend. The district court determined that “all that is required” is that the “practice change relief applies to all [c]lass members” and that all class members be “eligible to submit and receive compensation for a claim.” R. Doc. 1622, at 12. We find that the district court’s analysis of claim eligibility and sufficiency of the injunctive relief -21-  2. The Settlement Satisfies Rule 23 Appellants also attack the Settlement for violating Rule 23. Many of Appellants’ arguments center on an alleged factual disparity between the Missouri claims and other nationwide claims. Mullis argues that the Second Circuit’s holding in National Super Spuds, Inc. v. New York Mercantile Exchange, 660 F.2d 9 (2d Cir. 1981), requires settlements to extinguish only claims “asserted in the class action compliant” and that the district court was obligated to employ “the identical factual predicate rule.” Mullis’s Br. 32. We disagree. It is well established that [a] settlement agreement may preclude a party from bringing a related claim in the future even though the claim was not presented and might not have been presentable in the class action, but only where the released claim is based on the identical factual predicate as that underlying the claims in the settled class action. Hesse v. Sprint. Corp., 598 F.3d 581, 590 (9th Cir. 2010) (citation modified). Moreover, Mullis misreads National Super Spuds, as that case concerned bringing additional claims when “the final settlement agreement enlarged the scope of the claims to be released without giving notice to the class members.” In re Gen. Am. Life Ins. Co. Sales Pracs. Litig., 357 F.3d 800, 805 (8th Cir. 2004). Here, the class received proper notice that released claims “includ[ed] claims as a seller, buyer, or otherwise.” R. Doc. 1595-7, at 78. The district court also considered the Rule 23(e) factors as applied to the REBNY class members and determined that the claims shared a factual predicate. “It is not at all uncommon for settlements to include a global release of all claims was not an abuse of discretion, as the district court did consider the scope of the release. -22- past, present, and