• by Ray Schultz , February 26, 2024

A two-year legal battle over payment for the purchase of a group of small newspapers in Minnesota ended when a judge ruled in favor of the former owner. 

Jason Sethre was ordered to pay $78,000 to David Phillips, who sold the six Southeastern Minnesota newspapers to him in 2020.

Sethre closed the papers that year.

At the heart of the dispute is the charge that Phillips gave a 20-year-old computer to Pam Bluhm, an employee at the former Chatfield News, the Star-Tribune reports. Bluhm used files in the computer to start the Chatfield News Co.

Sethre contended that Phillips violated the terms of the sale and he declined to pay the sum that Phillips was owed for a three-year consulting gig as part of the sale, the Star Tribune writes. But the court did not agree. 

"(Sethre) is asking the Court to find that the covenants to not compete covered conduct they were not written to cover, which is not something the Court can do," Fillmore County District Judge Jeremy Clinefelter ruled.

Bluhm was also sued, but Sethre withdrew that case.