'Million Dollar Listing' Star Ryan Serhant Lawsuit: How He Escaped Case With $1 Million Damages
"Million Dollar Listing" star Ryan Serhant was able to quickly shut down the lawsuit brought by his former client accusing him of fraud. The case comes with $1 Million damages if Serhant loses, but this is moot now because somehow, he was able to escape it.
Based on the court documents obtained by Radar Online, a New York judge sided with Serhant and dismissed all fraud claims brought by his former client Aaron Coppelson in a 2019 complaint.
It can be remembered that the luxury real estate agent was accused of fraud and illegal business practices in the federal lawsuit way back in 2019 - before the pandemic happened to everyone in the world. Based on his complaint, Coppelson said he hired Serhant to give him assistance in securing an investment property in 2015.
According to him, the Bravo star certainly was willing to provide his services, and was quite pushy. Allegedly, Serhant pushed hard for him to buy a $4.375 million property in Manhattan. At the time, the owner of the property went "underwater and must sell now."
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The former client said Serhant promised the home would well over $5 million in "a short period of time and that the property was a "gold mine." Serhant was reportedly banking on the fact that the property was being sold cheap since it must be rid off immediately.
Needless to say, Coppelson trusted Serhan's judgement. He proceeded to purchase the home for $4,375,000. But aftewards, he felt duped because it was very difficult to sell of the property years later. He was eventually able to unload it for $3,675,000, which means he lost significant amount of money.
To make matters worse, Coppelson revealed he later learned Serhant represented the seller in the original transaction without even telling him. This revelation made him sue.
"All of the above misrepresentations, omissions, and/or conduct involved material facts between the parties and were unfair, illegal, false, deceptive and/or misleading," the relevant documents read. Coppelson sued for $1 million in damages.
But Serhant is getting away scot-free. The judge finds no merits in the accusations to warrant a case and dismissed it. On his part and before judgement was given, Serhant first denied all allegations and demanded the suit be tossed out of court. He claimed his statements were nothing more than his expert's opinion and should not be begrudged of it did not turn out to be true, especially investments usually come with risks.
Serhantt called Coppelson a "sophisticated investor" and said he should be aware that there were always risks. The judge seems to agree.
the judge presiding over the case found the statements Serhant made to his client were not improper. The phrases made by Serhant, "best one of the list" and "underwater" are not actionable as fraud. The court also held that Serhant did nothing wrong when he represented both parties in the sale.
Hence, the agent and star no longer has to deal with the idea of paying $1 million in damages, as the case was dimissed.