Journal Communications Inc. and a group of employees
forced to take early retirement at the time of the Milwaukee Journal-Milwaukee Sentinel merger announced they had reached
an $8.9 million settlement in the ex-employees' lawsuit against the Milwaukee-based communications company.
The former employees filed a class action suit in May
1999 that alleged Journal Communications and trustees of the Journal Employees Stock Trust Agreement -- the company's employee-ownership
plan -- did not follow an agreement that allows some departed employees to sell back their stock shares in Journal Communications
over a period of up to 10 years. The former employees claimed the company later forced them to sell 20 percent of their stock
per year over a five-year period, resulting in large financial losses.
In March 1995, 252 former employees of the Milwaukee
Sentinel and The Milwaukee Journal newspapers were fired when the two dailies merged. Journal Communications is the parent
company of the newspaper redubbed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The $8.9 million settlement amount results from a compromise
between the company and the former employees on the value of their stock holdings, said Kevin Demet, a Milwaukee attorney
who represents the former employees. Accounting firms for the company and former employees gave differing expert opinions
on the value of the stock, Demet said.
The class group includes about 150 people, one third
of whom the experts determined had suffered no damages and two thirds of whom will receive a larger portion of the settlement,
Demet said.
The "no damage" group will receive payments of $2,000
each, Demet said. The larger group will receive a wide range of settlement money, depending on the amount of stock they held
and how long they held it. The average payment to the latter group will be about $40,000, plus the right to resume holding
their stock for up to 10 years, Demet said.
Journal Communications and the attorneys for the former
employees said in a joint statement that the settlement "is preferable to protracted litigation because each party knows what
the outcome will be and saves the considerable risks and expenses incurred when a trial or appeal is involved."
A Journal Communications spokeswoman declined any further
comment.
Journal Communications management had disagreed with
an April 2000 ruling by Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Donegan that favored the former employees. The company
appealed the matter to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. The company lost the appeal and in 2001 took a $10 million charge for
"potential adverse outcomes" of this and other lawsuits.
A preliminary hearing on the settlement will be held
Thursday before Donegan. A final hearing will be scheduled later on distributing the settlement to former employees, Demet
said.
Sex offender's lake property turned over to victims
But judge declines to mediate dispute among interested buyers of estate
By Lisa Sink
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: Sept. 2, 1999
Waukesha - A judge Thursday turned over ownership of $1.6 million worth of Oconomowoc Lake property owned by a convicted
sex offender and Schlitz brewing heir to the man's sex assault victims.
However, Circuit Judge Patrick Snyder refused to mediate a dispute about interested buyers, leaving that legal tangle in
the lap of fellow Judge James Kieffer, who was assigned to a related lawsuit filed this week.
Snyder ordered Schiltz heir W. David Tallmadge's two properties, a lakefront parcel worth more than $1 million and a commercial
frontage lot worth about $500,000, be given to a woman and a girl he was convicted of assaulting in California.
A host of attorneys crowded the courtroom Thursday, asking Snyder to disapprove the first offer for Tallmadge's lake property
and allow the victims' attorneys to accept the highest offer.
Robert Felker, who made the first offer of $1,000,010 just hours after the lots went on the market this winter, filed a
lawsuit Tuesday that was assigned to Kieffer. In his suit, Felker contended he has right of first refusal and the right to
match any other offer.
There are five higher offers - one of which was about 25% higher - and as many as 38 buyers have expressed an interest,
said attorney Kevin Demet, who represents a 9-year-old girl Tallmadge was convicted of molesting.
That girl and a second woman, now 21, won a $14.1 million judgment against Tallmadge after Tallmadge was convicted in June
of 1997 of molesting the two at his former Pacific Palisades, Calif., home.
Tallmadge, 67, who has two prior sexual assault convictions, is serving a 265-year prison sentence for the California assaults.
He sexually assaulted one girl when she was 4 and repeatedly molested a second girl from when she was 9 until she turned 14.
Tallmadge is the great-grandson of former Jos. Schiltz Brewing Co. President Henry Uihlein.
Tallmadge's local attorney, Jonathan Smith, asked Snyder to hold off on stripping Tallmadge of the real estate. Smith noted
that although a California appeals court this summer upheld Tallmadge's convictions, he was asking the California Supreme
Court to hear the case.
Snyder determined the likelihood of success on appeal was extremely remote. He said the "time was right" to liquidate Tallmadge's
assets to compensate his victims.
Demet then asked Snyder to approve the sale of the real estate and to deny Felker's offer because there were higher bids.
Demet has noted that the lots' estimated $1.6 million value is only a small fraction of the $14.1 million he owes the two
victims, and after older liens, attorneys fees and other costs are lopped off the land sales the victims will still be owed
millions of dollars.
Snyder said his job was simply to transfer ownership of the land from Tallmadge to the victims and they could sell the
property as they wished.
Felker's attorney has cried foul, saying a receiver Snyder appointed and allowed to list the lots for sale this winter
accepted Felker's offer in a legally binding contract.
The contract presented by receiver Janet Matt indicated the sale was contingent on approval by the court. Snyder said Thursday
that was false and that he did not have authority to approve any sale.
Demet and attorney Matt Linn, who represents the second victim, were optimistic they would sell the property without further
hassle and at an attractive price. They said they thought they might even convince Felker to increase his offer and buy the
parcel he has wanted for more than a year.
