• by Ray Schultz , November 7, 2024

Gannett is facing possible liability from events that allegedly took place in the 1980s.

Eight former paperboys sued Gannett Co. Inc. and its newspaper, the Democrat & Chronicle in 2019, charging that they had been sexually abused by a route supervisor years before, the Rochester Beacon reports. 

There was a two-year delay while a New York Workers’ Compensation Board heard the case. 

Gannett sought to remove the case from a state court that hears hear Child Victims Act (CVA) to the workers’ compensation system, where damages presumably would be lighter. 

However, the case was sent back to the state court in Buffalo, where Supreme Court Justice Deborah Chimes ruled that the cases can proceed, the Beacon said.  

“This court finds (the) claims were not time barred when the initial (CVA) complaint was filed,” Chimes wrote.  

The cases could still end up being decided by the workers’ compensation board. 

The former newspaper carriers claim they suffered sexual abuse as teenagers at the hands of an adult route supervisor, Jack Lazeroff, who died in 2003 at age 74.

A Democrat & Chronicle executive stated earlier that no one at the paper “recalls any complaints or allegations of the kind that you describe, either against Mr. Lazeroff, or any other person,” the Beacon adds.