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We're in the sixth year since Wendy McCaw plundered the lives of her Santa Barbara News-Press staff, ruined a pretty good newspaper and then, incredibly, sued ex-editor Jerry Roberts for $25 million he didn't have as a working journalist. McCaw is rich and never had any hope of collecting a cent from Roberts, so her attacks on his integrity always smelled a lot like harassment of Roberts, who has reeked of integrity ever since he and other newsroom leaders resigned in 2006 over the ethics of McCaw and her cronies. McCaw's expensive legal gymnastics have been rejected at every step. Now today, finally, a California State Court of Appeal has affirmed an arbitrator's ruling that McCaw owes Roberts $900,000 for all the crap she has put him through.
Santa Barbara media watcher and blogger (and lawyer) Craig Smith has the news and analysis. Ampersand is McCaw's company.
As for where the case goes from here, Ampersand and McCaw have no other appeals as a matter of right. They could petition the California Supreme Court to review the decision but that court picks and chooses the cases it wants to hear and the vast majority of petitions for review are turned down. So, Wednesday's ruling from the Court of Appeal could very well be the last chapter in the McCaw vs. Roberts saga.
Smith foresaw this ruling when he attended oral arguments earlier this month. In 2006, Roberts also was diagnosed with follicular non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Previously on LA Observed:
Lou Cannon rips Wendy McCaw a new one
McCaw's revenge
Media massacre in Santa Barbara