A federal judge has ruled to allow a Nelson County real estate company to try again in a lawsuit alleging antitrust actions by the Wintergreen Resort and a local real estate company. U.S. District Court Judge Norman Moon permitted Mountain Area Realty, a Nellysford-based firm, to file an amended complaint and, for now, tossed out multiple motions to dismiss.
 Mountain Area Realty contends that operators of Wintergreen Resort created a monopoly on mountaintop home sales by giving Roy Wheeler Realty exclusive office rights at the Mountain Inn. |
Mountain Area Realty claims that an exclusive deal between Wintergreen Partners and the Charlottesville-based Roy Wheeler Realty has led to lost revenue for itself and higher costs to Wintergreen property owners seeking to sell their homes. Mountain Area Realty is asking for an unspecified amount in damages, but details suggest the figure should come to at least $15 million.
In the most recently amended complaint, Mountain Area Realty alleges that the firm jointly created by Wheeler Realty and Wintergreen Partners, Wintergreen Resort Premier Properties (which "lacked the resources, knowledge, quality and efficiency to serve the Resort market") had an unfair advantage as the only firm able to set up shop at the Mountain Inn. Referred to as the "honey hole" in court documents, there ski-giddy tourists with thoughts of lifelong holidays can wander through and spontaneously purchase one of 3,000 homes at Wintergreen. The complaint contends that market share for Wheeler Realty jumped to 25 percent from 2 percent thanks to the 2006 deal with Wintergreen.
In one of many motions to dismiss, attorneys for the defendants responded: "Customers are free to choose whatever business they want. That the customers’ choices are influenced by location does not prevent their competitors from securing the customers’ business through more aggressive advertising, better prices, or better service."
When the suit was filed in February, a lawyer for Mountain Area Realty told The Daily Progress: "We’re going to duke it out. They’re going to spend umpteen-jillion dollars. And I guess my client is going to spend umpteen-jillion dollars too." That seems to be the case so far, based on the plethora of filings—making the attorneys in the case the only guaranteed winners.
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