GateHouse says Copley didn’t pay termination benefits

July 31, 2009
By Billy Dennis

I suspected is was about this.

A little known fact of the March 13, 2007, agreement through which GateHouse Media bought the Peoria Journal Star and other Copley Press newspapers in Illinois was that Copley would pay termination benefits for certain employees.

The lawsuit filed by GateHouse against Copley on Wednesday accuses Copley of breaching that agreement. I received a 14-page PDF file, submitted to me by one of of several people who managed to get access to it.

The gist is this: Copley had been making these payments in the “tens of thousands of dollars” until on or about March 2009, when Copley stopped making payments to reimburse GateHouse for termination pay and continued benefits for employees terminated on or before December 1, 2007. The suit alleges this was a breach of their agreement and contrary to past behavior by Copley.

GateHouse wants to be paud actual and compensatory damages of $63,790.95. The company also wants to be reimbursed for attorney’s fees, costs of suits, pre-judgment interest and further general relief to which it might be entitled.

The federal lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.

Copleycomplaint.pdf

Tags: , ,

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

3 Responses to “ GateHouse says Copley didn’t pay termination benefits ”

  1. anotherexjser on August 1, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    I e-mailed your link to Don Bauder at the San Diego Reader, and he posted a story:

    here

    Comments are interesting.

  2. Billy Dennis on August 1, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    Thanks for sending the link to the Reader. Selfishly, I would have appreciated a mention of this site’s actual name, but what the Hell.

    And yes, the comments are interesting. And informative.

  3. AnotherExJSer on August 2, 2009 at 6:36 am

    I sent him the link to the story on your site, Billy, not the text, so Bauder should have been able to tell it was from your site. Maybe I’m missing something. At least he complimented you later.