By: E&P Staff 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.
"The Supreme Court ruling vindicates the rights of private parties to publish legal notices in the newspaper of their choice," Newal Squyres, a lawyer for the Business Review, said according to Estrella's story.
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