The Idaho Supreme Court has overturned a state law that essentially gave The Idaho Statesman, the state's biggest newspaper, a monopoly on legal ads.
Ruling in a case brought by the Statesman against the weekly Idaho Business Review, the state's highest court declared unconstitutional a state law reserving government and private legal notices for the big circulation daily, according to an account in the Statesman by Joe Estrella.
The Supreme Court reached its ruling by saying the title of the law, which referred only to government notices, did not match the text of the law, which also included references to private legal notices such as foreclosures, name changes, and probate notices.
Under the ruling, government legal notices will continue to be required to run in the Statesman.
The Boise-based Statesman sued the Idaho Business Review in 2006 for publishing private legal notices. A state District Court judge in 2007 ruled that the notices must be published in the paper with the largest circulation in its area. The 62,000-circulation Statesman is much bigger than the 3,400-circ business weekly.
This is crazy -- Idaho had a law giving the McClatchy newspaper exclusive rights to run legal ads in Idaho?!
3 comments:
I enjoy the blog. If we want to send you an idea, where we can email it? (perhaps it's on the page and I missed). Thanks!
You can email me at KGreg999@aol.com.
Ideas and tips are welcome, thanks.
Modesto Bee isn't generating the ad revenue it wants, but have you seen all the legals? Usually 6 pages sometimes 7...due to the housing slump and foreclosures. These HAVE to be generating over a million a month. Probably the same situation at the other papers in the "Roman Empire". Where's Nero...I mean Shemp...Oh, I mean Gary?
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