Lawyers for the SF Weekly failed today to get a delay in the trial of the Guardian’s lawsuit against the paper and its chain parent, Village Voice Media. So jury selection will begin Thursday morning.
The Weekly’s lawyers, H. Sinclair Kerr and Ivo Labar, argued a computer file the Guardian had turned over to them last week amounted to a huge new pile of data that would take considerable time to review. They asked Judge Marla Miller to postpone the trial for 90 days.
But the Guardian’s lawyers, Ralph Alldredge and Craig Moody, pointed out that the computer file was just an Excel spreadsheet containing data that VVM and the Guardian had exchanged some time ago. There was, they said, nothing new in the file, and Miller agreed.
The Guardian is suing the weekly for predatory pricing, arguing that the big national operation has been selling ads bleow cost in an effort to harm a locally owned, independent competitor. As part of his presentation, Alldredge noted that that Weekly lost close to $2 million in 2007, evidence that the paper continues to sell ads below cost.
Jury selection is expected to take no more than two days, and Miller has set opening arguments for Monday.