Hausfeld appointed interim co-lead counsel in nationwide antitrust case impacting manufactured home owners

On October 31, 2023, Judge Franklin Valderrama, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, appointed Hausfeld LLP and co-counsel DiCello Levitt LLP to serve as Plaintiffs’ Interim Co-Lead Class Counsel on behalf of a nationwide class of manufactured home residents.

In August 2023, Hausfeld and DiCello Levitt filed an antitrust class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Carla Hajek and Gregory Hammerlund v. Datacomp Appraisal Systems Inc., et al., on behalf of manufactured home owners impacted nationwide by their landlords’ conspiracy to fix, raise, and systematically inflate manufactured home lot rents across the United States.

In a case of nationwide significance, Hausfeld and DiCello Levitt allege that nine manufactured home community management companies and one manufactured home market data provider, Datacomp Appraisal Systems Inc., used competitively sensitive market data circulated among the Defendants in for-purchase reports published by Datacomp to raise and fix the rents charged to manufactured home owners across the country.

“Across the country, the high cost of housing is an issue. Many Americans sadly do not have a lot of housing choices, so many turn to the ostensible flexibility that owning a manufactured home provides. But many of them lose those benefits when forced to pay ever-increasing rents by community owners and operators that are sharing pricing information with would-be competitors on a regular basis,” said Hausfeld Partner Reena Gambhir. “We look forward to fighting for our clients' rights.”

If you live in a manufactured home and have questions about the case please contact: Hausfeld at mhlantitrust@hausfeld.com or 202.540.7200, or DiCello Levitt at mhlantitrust@dicellolevitt.com or 646.933.1000.