ReMax Can’t Claim It’s No. 1 Firm : Courts: Century 21 International obtains restraining order to squelch its real estate rival’s claims.

What’s in a number? A lot if it’s No. 1.

Century 21 International, holding company for the giant Century 21 real estate chain, recently obtained a restraining order in U.S. District Court in Orange County prohibiting rival ReMax Inc. in Denver from claiming that it is the No. 1 real estate chain in the world.

The order also prohibits ReMax from claiming No. 1 status in North America or even just in the United States.

Century 21, which fancies itself at the top, objects to such claims and has filed false advertising suits in three federal districts--Southern California, Boston and Miami, Fla.--to keep ReMax and its agents from repeating them. The suits were filed in three places because the wording of ReMax’s claim changed slightly from place to place, with the chain claiming worldwide leadership in Florida, North American dominance in Boston and U.S. supremacy in Southern California, said Richard Loughlin, president of Century 21 at its national headquarters in Irvine.

ReMax maintains that its claims are accurate.

A similar case, but on a local basis, was filed last year by First Team Real Estate in Costa Mesa against Tarbell Realtors in Santa Ana, which was touting itself as Orange County’s No. 1 real estate operation by sales volume and number of offices.

Like the Century 21 action, First Team’s case is still pending.

As to why the suits were filed in the first place--the reason is competition, Loughlin said.

“It doesn’t mean much to the average client because people don’t usually look to see who’s the biggest,” he said. “But it can be the tie-breaker when a client is considering two or three agents and one of them can claim to be backed by the No. 1 operation in the country. It also is critical to our franchise holders when they are trying to recruit new sales associates.”

Actually, several companies could claim to be No. 1, depending on how that status is determined. Total sales closed, dollar volume, number of offices and number of agents all have been used by realty companies to substantiate their claims of prominence and dominance.

Real Trends, the industry-watching journal, once published rankings of the seven major chains: Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate, Century 21 International, Coldwell Banker Residential Group, ERA Realty, Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, ReMax and Realty World. But it stopped doing so several years ago because it couldn’t get all seven to agree on a format or even on a uniform method for verifying their claims, said a spokeswoman for magazine co-publisher Laurie Moore.