When I recently wrote about class action suits, I wondered whether — given the current Supreme Court’s majority notions that support powerful corporations over groups of individuals with grievances — there would be any more class action lawsuits.
I’m pleased to announce: Yes! Another class action lawsuit reported in the New York Times, one of the corporations being stymied:
A Massachusetts judge has temporarily blocked The New York Times Company’s planned sale of The Boston Globe and The Worcester Telegram & Gazette to the investor John W. Henry, citing a lawsuit involving the Worcester newspaper and its delivery workers.
The order by Judge Shannon Frison of Superior Court in Worcester was issued Friday and came just as the Times Company and Mr. Henry were set to complete the purchase. The Times agreed in early August to sell The Globe and its other New England media properties, including The Telegram & Gazette, for $70 million as part of its strategy to shed peripheral assets to focus on its core newspaper brand.
The class-action lawsuit that is now preventing the sale was filed in 2009 and involves the work status of the more than 1,000 newspaper carriers at The Telegram & Gazette. Those carriers argue that they were incorrectly classified as independent contractors rather than employees and are owed compensation that they estimate is worth $60 million.
Here’s the whole (New York Times) story: Lawsuit at Worcester Paper Delays Times’s Sale of The Globe – NYTimes.com.