Round one of printers' lawsuit against BJ

After both sides laid out their arguments before bespectacled Northern Ohio District Court Judge David Dowd Jr. today, it boiled down to this:

1. Judge Dowd will decide whether to grant the printers' counsel's request for a temporary injunction. The goal would be to revert the printers to the per-prescription co-pay ($1 to $5) they had before Black Press bought the Beacon Journal from McClatchy in 2006.

2. The two sides would try to resolve some issues before a magistrate.

3. If the issues are resolved within about two weeks, then Judge Dowd indicated he would set a December date for a trial. If not, then the trial would be put off till spring 2010.

4. Judge Dowd also will rule on whether the case comes under ERISA, which means a judge would decide, or NLRA, which means a jury trial. NLRA is the National Labor Relations Act. ERISA is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

Brett Bacon, outside counsel from the Cleveland law firm of Frantz Ward, did the talking for the Beacon Journal. BJ General Counsel Karen Chuparkoff Lefton attended, but was not at the defendant's table and did not speak.

Don Screen of the Cleveland law firm of Chandra did most of the presentation for the printers' side. Subodh Chandra, who has a lot of experience in labor law, also spoke. Allen Anderson of Smith & Johnson attorneys of Traverse City, Michigan, the first attorney to get involved in the case, also was at the plaintiffs' table.

The quiet-spoken Judge Dowd, speaking of the retirement letters that printers got which promised a lifetime prescription card with $1 to $5 co-pays per prescription, said "real promises were made that have been broken." He added: "You promise this; you take it away."

The BJ's counsel said that other aspects superseded the letter's power and that the decades of cheap co-pays were "gratuitous" or, as Judge Dowd rephrased it, "out of the goodness of your heart."

Judge Dowd indicates that he did not want to delay the case any more than necessary "because there are lives involved" and not just money. Mentioned was that retired printer John Costello, who has a severe arthritic condition, stopped taking treatments when the BJ dropped his $5 co-pay and he would have to pay $600 a week instead.

Spectators in the Main Street courthouse included Ruth West and Gina White, named in the lawsuit seeking a return to the coverage status for years that the printers got in return for giving up their lifetime job guarantees; retired printer Bob Abbott, who has spent months and months trying to drum up support for rolling back the BJ's health care and prescription changes; and John Olesky, Guild retiree. The Guild also had a lifetime $2 per-prescription co-pay when Olesky retired in 1996. The BJ changed to a more-expensive plan for Guild retirees, too, when Black Press bought the BJ.

For the original story on the lawsuit, which provides far more details about the case, click on the headline.