IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
IN re: MORRIS PUBLISHING GROUP, LLC, et al. Case No. 10-10134 (JSD)
Joint Administration
Hon. John S. Dalis, Bankruptcy Judge
______________________________________________________________________________
INTERVENORS’S OPPOSITION
AND OBJECTION TO
TO DEBTOR’S MOTION FOR FINAL DECREE,
THEIR MOTION TO APPEAR AT APRIL 28 HEARING BY TELEPHONE,
AND INTERVENORS’ EMERGENCY MOTION FOR STAY PENDENTE LITE
_____________________________________________________________________________
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
Debtors’ premature demand for a Final Decree is misleading and seeks to violate the First Amendment rights of Intervenors to have their appeal heard. Intervenors request to attend the April 28, 2010 hearing by telephone.
It violates Federal and Local Bankruptcy Rules as it asks this Court to undercut and eviscerate Intervenor’s Due Process rights. Debtor demands that this Court violate Intervenors’ rights and is attempting to render their appeal moot. Hence, the Final Decree must be DENIED at this time.
Intervenors move to stay any action on the Motion, at least until such time as their appeal of the Court’s denial of Intervention is ruled upon by the District Court. An emergency exists because there is a clear and present danger that the St. Augustine Record might be shut down by Debtor, whose counsel declined to promise that the Record would stay in business. (Exhibit D, April 9, 2010 Ed Slavin confirmatory E-mail to counsel for Debtor, which was responded to by threats by debtor to make Intervenor pay “tens of thousands of dollars” to defend against efforts by Intervenor newspaper readers to be heard about the future of our own local newspaper).
ARGUMENT
Appeal on Intervention Motion is Pending Before District Court
A. Your Intervenors, Judith Seraphin and Ed Slavin, hereby respectfully oppose the Reorganized Debtor’s April 7, 2010 Motion for Final Decree and request a stay of this action, pending their appeal, on the grounds that they have paid the fee and timely given notice of their appeal to the United States District Court involving:
1. Our Motion to Intervene , Motion to Appoint Trustee or Examiner, and Motion to Hold Telephonic Hearing (Doc. 88).
2. The Honorable Bankruptcy Judge’s February 10, 2010 Order Denying Objection to Confirmation (Doc. 127)
3. Our Motion to Reconsider the February 10, 2010 Order (Doc. 154).
4. The Honorable Bankruptcy Judge’s February 16, 2010 order (Doc. 156).
Motion to Intervene is a Core Proceeding,
This Case Is Not “Fully Administered”
and Debtors Violated the Requirement of Mandatory Local Rule 2015-1(a)
B. The Motion to Intervene is a “core” proceeding under bankruptcy law. 28 U.S.C. 157; U.S. Lines, Inc. v. Am. Steamship Owners Mut. Prot. & Indem. Ass’n (In re U.S. Lines, Inc.), 197 F.3d 631, 637 (2d Cir. 1999) (identifying proceeding to be core “if either (1) the type of proceeding is unique to or uniquely affected by the bankruptcy proceeding . . . or (2) the proceedings directly affect a core bankruptcy function.”).
This is not a case where “all motions, contested matters, and adversary proceedings have been finally resolved.” Compare Bankruptcy Rule 3022-1(b)(6).
Under Bankruptcy Rule 3022(b) this case has not been “fully administered." An appeal is pending in a core proceeding – a Motion to Intervene – one that goes to the heart of whether Debtor will be allowed to continue disinvesting in the St. Augustine Record and be allowed to close it down. Debtor’s motion fixates on Intervenor’s appeal, but Debtor does not acknowledge the subject or seriousness of the issues raised by Intervenors.
The Intervention matter is a core proceeding. 11 U.S.C. 157(b)(2)(A,J). Yet the Reorganized Debtors mistakenly claim this is an ancillary proceeding and mistakenly assert that “because the Proposed Intervenors have continued to receive uninterrupted newspaper delivery on account of their prepetition subscriptions, the Proposed Intervenors do not hold any unsatisfied prepetition claims.” Motion at 4n3. Mandatory Southern District of Georgia Bankruptcy Court Local Rules would be violated by granting the Final Decree. Debtor has not met the first procedural prerequisite of a Final Decree. Those mandatory Local Rules state:
LBR 2015- 1 FINAL REPORTS AND APPLICATIONS FOR FINAL DECREES IN CHAPTER 11 CASES
(a) The trustee or debtor-in-possession shall file the report required by Bankruptcy Rule 2015(a)(5) within thirty (30) days of the entry of the order of confirmation.
(b) Within 180 days of the entry of the order of confirmation, the trustee or debtor-in-possession shall file, pursuant to 11 U.S.C. s 1106, an application for a final decree in the form prescribed by the Court, unless the Bankruptcy Court orders otherwise.
(Emphases added).
C. It is the most basic of statutory construction principles that the word "shall" is “mandatory,” not permissive or precatory. See United States ex rel. Siegel v. Thoman, 156 U.S. 353, 360 (1894); In re CK Liquidation Corp., (2005 WL 2436444) (D. Mass. 2005); Sands, Sutherland's Statutory Construction § 25.04.
Local Bankruptcy Rule 2015(a) contains mandatory “shall” language, making the filing of a Final Report a necessary predicate for obtaining a Final Decree from this Honorable Court.
Did Debtor comply with the mandatory “shall” language of Local Bankruptcy Rule 2015-1(a) in seeking Final Decree? Did Debtor file a Final Report? From the docket, some six (6) days after Debtor’s motion was filed, it appears that the answer to these two questions is “no” and “no.”
Hence, Debtor’s premature application for a Final Decree does not meet the first procedural requirement of LBR 2015-1.
The Court must deny Debtor’s Motion for Final Decree as violating LBR 2015-1. Debtor’s premature demand for a Final Decree must be denied because the mandatory first procedural prerequisite has not been met for the Court to consider a Final Decree. LBR 2015-1(a).
No Urgency to Order Final Decree Now
D. Even if Debtor complies with LBR 2015(a), there is no urgency to grant the Motion. LBR 2015(b) establishes that there has been a timely application. There is no principled reason to expedite granting of a Final Decree. There is utterly no urgency about granting the Final Decree. The Court should not entertain a Motion for a Final Decree until such time as the Intervenors’ status – and the future of the St. Augustine Record and the First Amendment in our Nation’s Oldest City – can be determined by the District Court and federal appellate courts.
Why Did Debtor Serve Intervenors By Regular Mail, Not “Expeditiously”?
E. Did Debtor serve Intervenors by means as expeditious as the Court was served? No. Compare Fed. R. App. P. 25. Debtors filed with the Court electronically, via PACER. Debtor mailed the Motion to Intervenors by regular mail – the April 7 filing was received by mail on April 12, 2010. Debtor has Intervenor’s fax number and failed and refused to use it. The Court should caution Debtor that it must serve Intervenors just as expeditiously as it serves the Court.
Debtor Did Not Object to Intervention, Waiving Its Right to Object
F. Debtor did not object to Intervenor’s motion to intervene. It is an ancient equitable maxim that “silence gives consent.” Debtors must not be heard now to object to letting newspaper customers and subscribes being heard about their concerns about the St. Augustine Record and its future. Your Intervenors filed their Motion to Interrvene very promptly upon learning of the bankruptcy case. See United Airlines, Inc. v. McDonald, 432 U.S. 385, 394 (1977); United States v. South Bend Community School Corp., 710 F.2d 394, 396 (7th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 926 (1984). Meanwhile, Debtor did not oppose the Intervention motion or the Motion for Reconsideration. Debtor slept on its rights. The Court denied a Motion to Intervene that was unopposed. Intervenors filed a timely appeal. That appeal must be heard and decided before a Final Decree can be considered. Denying the Final Decree now will preserve and protect Intervenor’s rights. Denying the Final Decree will protect Due Process, fairness and judicial economy, while avoiding an apperance of partiality. This case has not been “fully administered.” Since Intervnors have appealed from the Honorable Bankruptcy Judge’s Orders in a core proceeding that the Court has already determined to be an “objection” to the reorganization. Hence, no Final Decree may be issued pendente lite.
Intervenors’ Due Process Rights Are Threatened
By Debtor’s Demand For Final Decree
Before Intervenors’ Appeal on Standing to Rise First Amendment and Newspaper Preservation Can Be Addressed By District Court on Appeal
G. Both “First Amendment values” and Intervenors’ rights are threatened by Debtor’s refusal to commit to keep the St. Augustine Record open and adequately funded. Thus, consideration of the request for a Final Decree must be stayed pending appeal of the Intervention petition. Debtor’s April 7, 2010 filing of a premature, procedurally deficient Motion for Entry of a Final Decree is beneath the standard of care expected from an experienced bankruptcy lawyer.
It appears to be an act of desperation and subterfuge, intended to frustrate Intervenor’s First Amendment rights to petition the courts for a redress of grievances. In fact, the reason for our Petition to Intervene – and our First Amendment values concerns – still exist and they have not been resolved, particularly not after what Intervenors learned in a telephone call from the Debtor’s counsel (Mr. Nicholas Miller, Esq.) on April 1, 2010. See Exhibits D&E, April 9, 2010 Ed Slavin confirmatory E-mails to Mr. Nicholas Miller, Esquire and Miller’s response. The rash response of Debtor to the readers’ first Amendment protected activity is to threaten “tens of thousands of dollars” in attorney fees, rather than agree to solve problems.
Debtor Refuses to Answer Any Questions or Provide Documents to Intervenors
H. Intervenors’ modest requests for informal discovery about financial information about the St. Augustine Record’s news budget, Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) staff have not been answered. (Exhibit E, April 9, 2010 Ed Slavin confirmatory E-mail to Nicholas Miller, Esq.). Our concern is that, despite the reorganization, the St. Augustine Record’s news coverage of events in corrupt St. Johns County, Florida still not restored to their pre-2006 levels. Where once the Record investigated wrongdoing – such as the deposit of 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir by the City of St. Augustine – the Record now lacks the resources to protect the public interest and expose government wrongdoing.
Is Debtor Planning to Close
the St. Augustine Record?
I. Based upon the undisputed disinvestment by Debtor in our local newspaper, as evidenced by the presently thin and shallow coverage by the St. Augustine Record, the Intervenors are concerned that the Debtor may soon close the St. Augustine Record and merge it into the Florida Times-Union.
J. Telephoned by Debtor’s counsel on April 1, 2010, we asked if he could promise the St. Augustine Record would not close and be merged into the Florida Times-Union. No such promise has been forthcoming from Debtor. (Exhibit D). Indeed, Debtor’s counsel himself spoke only some 33 days ago at an Internet seminar (“webinar”) March 9, 2010 on the hot topic, "Darwin on Media-Not Everyone Can Survive." (Exhibit C, attached). Hence, it is, misleading for Debtor to imply or claim that Intervenors’ interests – or the interests of other subscribers and customers – would somehow be protected by issuing a Final Decree or that the case has been “fully administered.”
Debtor publicly promised and threatened its St. Augustine, Florida customers, subscribers and readers that they would notice “no change” in the newspaper as a result of the bankruptcy. (Exhibit A to Motion to Intervene).
A Final Decree would eviscerate Intervenor’s rights to have their appeal heard by the United States District Court and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals (and potentially the United States Supreme Court).
Other District Courts have exercised their discretion in the light of wisdom and experience, declining to issue Final Decrees when issues were unresolved, and have been skeptical of considering 1991 Committee Comments when Bankruptcy law has grown since that time. See, e.g., In re: Shotkoski, 420 B.R. 479 (8th Cir. BAP 2009)(upholding District Court’s denying final decree where money was unpaid).
First Amendment “Watchdog” Function Must Be Protected
K. As previously cited to the Honorable Bankruptcy Court in our Motion to Reconsider, the public interest in our local newspaper’s “watchdog function” – the “watchdog function” is the very reason our Founding Fathers made the First Amendment the very first amendment to our Constitution – demands strict scrutiny of Morris’ plans for the St. Augustine Record:
The Court has a mandatory duty to protect the public interest in every bankruptcy, but nowhere more when newspapers, protected by our First Amendment, are in decline and being run into the ground by the Debtors The Debtors’ contempt for “First Amendment values” must be remedied. The Courts defer to this principle in legislative construction. Steelworkers v. Sadlowski, 457 U.S. 102, 111 (1982); Reed v. UTU, 488 U.S. 319, 325 (1989). The Court must protect “First Amendment values,” Sadlowski, Reed, supra. This case concerns the soul of our community, not just dollars and cents and the selfish concerns of billionaires and millionaires.
3. The Court must honor the mandatory requirement that: "Notwithstanding any otherwise applicable nonbankruptcy law, a plan shall contain only provisions that are consistent with the interests of creditors and equity security holders and with public policy with respect to the manner of selection of any officer, director, or trustee under the plan and any successor to such officer, director, or trustee." 11 U.S.C. 1123 (a)(7) (emphasis added). The Court must vindicate “First amendment values” and help in the vital task of the preservation of our democracy.
4. The public interest will be served by granting intervention and there is no downside. See Karen Gross, “Taking Community Interests into Account in Bankruptcy: An Essay”, 72 Wash. U. L.Q. 1031 (1994), stating: "saying that community interests are important and must be taken into account in the bankruptcy process does not mean that the other interests that bankruptcy seeks to protect, such as those of creditors and equity holders, are forgotten." Gross, 1032-33n4 (emphasis in original).
5. While "Bankruptcy is a gloomy and depressing subject," Charles Warren, Bankruptcy in United States History 3 (1935), this Court has "some leeway" in considering the public interest in individual decisions to the extent that Congress has indicated that a judge should not confirm a plan unless it appears to the judge unlikely that further reorganization will not follow. Hon. Leif M. Clark, “What Constitutes Success in Chapter 11? A Roundtable Discussion,” 2 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 229, 233n89 (1994) (statement of Hon. James A. Goodman). Judge Goodman was referring to 11 U.S.C. 1129(a)(11) (1994), which says that the court should not confirm a plan unless "[c]onfirmation of the plan is not likely to be followed by the liquidation, or the need for further financial reorganization, of the debtor or any successor to the debtor under the plan, unless such liquidation or reorganization is proposed in the plan."
6. This Honorable Court has rightly allowed union members in other cases to be heard on bankruptcy matters. Likewise, newspaper readers have a legal right to be heard in defense of the First Amendment against the Debtors’ greed and mismanagement.
7. This Honorable Court swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Article VI, U.S. Constitution. This Court did not refer to the First Amendment in its Order.
8. Our Constitution is in shreds if Debtors are permitted to escape from their debts and to change nothing and to do nothing to improve the quality of the newspaper in our Nation’s Oldest City. Debtors must be held accountable by making them answer, under oath, for their disinvestment in news. Debtors’ low-quality journalism is now well-nigh irrefragable, since Intervenors’ January 19, 2010 filing is undisputed and operates as a party-opponent admission and admission by silence against both the Debtors and their creditors.
9. Intervenors are Record subscribers (and thus MORRIS creditors). Our standing is unimpeachable. We are acting as the conscience of our community. We have a right to be heard.
10. U.S. District Judge Murray Gurfein, a Nixon appointee serving his first day on the bench, wrote as the trial judge in the Pentagon Papers case that “security of the Nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know." U. S. v. New York Times Co., 328 F. Supp. 324 (S.D.N.Y. 1974)(Gurfein, J.)
11. Under MORRIS PUBLISHING’s current mismanagement, the Debtors are not fulfilling their constitutional function. The Court’s unresponsive February 9, 2010 order is contrary to the genius of a free people. The Court’s function must be to guarantee “the security of our Nation” by protecting “the value of our free institutions.”
12. Under both First Amendment and bankruptcy law, your Intervenors have a right to be heard. Our Founding Fathers and successive generations of Americans fought, bled and died for our First Amendment rights.
Public Has A “Right to Know”
About Debtor’s Plans for the St. Augustine Record
L. Intervenors and other newspaper customers and subscribers here in St. Johns County, Florida have a right to know whether Debtor plans on closing the St. Augustine Record. Debtor has robbed the St. Augustine Record of the funds and staffing needed for newsgathering before the bankruptcy reorganization. Thus far, Debtor has shared no documents on past, present and prospective levels of funding or staffing for the St. Augusitne Record. Debtor publicly stated that readers would see “no changes” in the St. Augustine Record’s news coverage. (Exhibit A to Motion to Intervene). Debtor (controlled by the Morris family of Augusta, Georgia) has contempt for the public interest in its bankruptcy reorganization. Debtor considers itself above being questioned by Intervenors. Debtor is not unlike the 19th century railroad tycoon, William Vanderbilt, who famously said “let the public be damned.” Stanley Engerman, Louis Galambos, The Cambridge Economic History of the United States (2000) at 944; see generally Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons – the Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901 (1962).
Debtor Promised/Threatened “No Change” After Bankruptcy Reorganization
M. As threatened and promised by Debtor (Exhibit A), there has been “no change” since the reorganization. This refusal to change portends failure for the Record and ruin for the rights of readers to be informed about misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, waste, fraud, abuse, union-busting, pollution, monopoly, unfair trade practices and other substantive evils on the part of governments and businesses in our region.
Debtor’s Declining Quality of News Coverage
Threatens to Decline Further
N. Debtor’s principle product is news. Too often, Debtor’s underfunded reporters and editors in St. Augustine, Florida are not newsgatherers, but stenographers, printing press releases and handouts from governments and large organizations. See, generally, Tom Wicker, On Press (1977). The decline of news in the St. Augustine Record threatens ruin for Debtor’s newspaper business, threatens ruin for its bondholders, and threatens ruin for the “First Amendment values.” Courts are duty-bound to protect the interests of the First Amendment in a bankruptcy case. Debtor’s adamant, admitted refusal to embrace change (Exhibit A) – Debtor’s refusal to invest resources saved in the bankruptcy reorganization cover local news – threatens death of our democracy and death of the St. Augustine Record. The St, Augustine Record is worth saving and restoring to its prior levels of community service. The Intervenors are prepared to pursue this case zealously to protect the right of the people to functioning newspapers holding governments and large organizations accountable. No Final Decree should be issued until their appeal can be heard by the District and appellate courts.
Since Refusal to Promise Not to Close St. Augustine Record
is Inconsistent with “No Change” Promised Readers,
this Court’s Function Must Now Be to Ferret Out The Truth
O. Has Debtor deceived this Honorable Court? By refusing to promise not to close the St. Augustine Record (Exhibit D), Debtor has contradicted its promise that there would be “no change” noticed by newspaper readers after the reorganization. (Exhibit A). As United States District Judge John J. Sirica wrote in his memoirs about an honor he was given by the City University of New York after his zealous questions exposed the Watergate break-in and coverup:
Two quotations were included in my citation. The first is from Edmund Burke, who said, “It is the duty of the Judge to receive every offer of evidence, apparently material, suggested to him, though the parties themselves through negligence, ignorance, or corrupt coilllusion, should not bring it forward. A judge is not placed in that high situation merely as a passive instrument of parties. He has a duty of his own, independent of them, and that duty is to investigate the truth.” The second is Thomas Aquinas’ definition of Justice as “a certain rectitude of mind, whereby a [person] does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.”
United States District Judge John J. Sirica, To Set the Record Straight – The Break-in, The Tapes, The Conspirators, the Pardon (1979) at 83 (Emphasis added).
“All Motions” Have Not Been “Finally Resolved”
P. Again, this is not a case where “all motions, contested matters, and adversary proceedings have been finally resolved.” Compare Bankruptcy Rule 3022(b)(6). A Final Decree would be premature.
Q. It is an ancient equitable maxim that“Equity delights to do justice, and not by halves.” Debtor does not address First Amendment issues. Debtor wants this Court to duck those issues and deny justice to Intervenors and others seeking to vindicate “First Amendment values.” The only colorably equitable argument raised by Debtors is its liability for some $50,000 more in fees if there is not a Final Decree. Intervenors do not object to an end to the accrual of fees. By ending the accrual of fees, this Court could narrowly tailor the relief given to what is necessary.
R. On the other hand, “to whom much is given, much is expected.” Luke 12:48. Debtor and its Creditors have benefitted greatly from the bankruptcy. Debtor has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars to bondholders. Bondholders have a more enforceable right to collet some 36 cents on the dollar. But what have Intervenors and other newspaper customers, subscribers and readers obtained from the bankruptcy? Nothing but newspapers that are all but non compos mentes, suffering from diminished capacity to report the news on account of Debtor starving the newspapers of funds and staff needed to perform the First Amendment “watchdog” function. Debtors now selfishly demand that the Court free out of the process the only people whose rights in this case were the subject of a constitutional amendment – the citizenry, for whose protection from oppression the First Amendment was adopted. The First Amendment, like the Seventh Amendment, is a “bulwark of democracy,” which was intended to protect the people against oppression. See, e.g., Parklane Hosiery v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322 (1979)(Rehnquist, J., dissenting). The only people left out in the cold in this reorganization case are newspaper readcrs, whom Debtor has neglected and not respected.
In light of their profiting from the bankrujptcy reorganization and reducing their debt by some $300 million (Exhibit D at 2), it is only fair and just that Debtor continue to pay fees until this case is resolved, including the core issue of whether Our Nation’s Oldest City will be left without a functioning newspaper for the first time since 1777, when the first printing press was brought to St. Augustine during the British period.
S. By its actions, it is apparent that Debtor does not want to risk answering any questions about its plans for the St. Augustine Record. The Court must ask, “Do the Debtors plan to close the St. Augustine Record?” (Exhibits D&E).
T. Prematurely granting a Final Decree would suggest that Debtors are being held to a lesser standard than the rules, law and justice require. It would require Intervenors to appeal from that Order. Granting a Final Decree when Local Rules have been violated would violate Due Process. Debtors’ approach attempts to render Intervenors’ appeals moot. Debtors’ selfish demand for a premature Final Decree would deny justice and would unjustly increase litigation costs for all.
U. Intervenors have a right to timely notice and a right to be heard. We want our daily newspaper back. We want zealous investigative reporting and coverage of local government agencies without fear or favor. We want journalism to be practiced again in St. Augustine. We want the cronyism and currying favor with government officials (such as City of St. Augustine City Manager WILIAM B. HARRISS) to stop.
As yesterday’s Pulitzer Prize award to a small Virginia newspaper shows, quality journalism is alive and well, where it is encouraged and valued by management. See, e.g., “Data Mining Yields Pulitzer for Bristol Herald-Courier,” Editor & Publisher (April 13, 2010), quoting 28-year old Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper reporter Daniel Gilbert, stating inter alia: “‘This underscores public service and accountability reporting in rural areas,’ he said. ‘If a newspaper is not going to do it, it's not going to happen.’" (Exhibit F).
It is contrary to the First Amendment, the ideals of our Founding Fathers and the genius of a free people – and contrary to the interests of the Intervenors and all other creditors – for Debtor to:
(1) disdain answering questions by its readers;
(2) threaten readers with retaliation for their filing in this Honorable Court (Exhibit D); and
(3) refuse to investigate wrongdoing in local governments and other large organizations. (Compare Exhibit E).
We want the District Court and Court of Appeals to be empowered to adjudicate our proposed Intervention, without a premature Final Decree. We merely ask the Honorable Bankruptcy Court to deny the procedurally deficient and premature request for a Final Decree.
CONCLUSION
This Court must maintain continuing jurisdiction over Debtor pending Intervenors’ appeal in order to protect the public interest in the First Amendment’s “watchdog function.”
Debtor refuses to promise to preserve the status quo ante by refusing to agree to keep the St. Augustine Record open. (Exhibit D).
Therefore, Intervenors respectfully object to the Final Decree, pending consideration by the United States District Court and Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals of their timely appeal from the Bankruptcy Court’s Orders.
Respectfully submitted,
JUDITH SERAPHIN
218B RIberia Street
St. Augustine, Florida 32084
904-829-0808
904-819-3517 (fax)
ED SLAVIN
Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085
904-829-3877
904-819-3517 (fax)
APRIL 13, 2010
Certificate of Service
I, Judith Seraphin, hereby certify that I sent the foregoing document to the following by regular mail on April 13, 2010, along with Exhibits C,D,E&F to:
Mr. William Morris, IV
Morris Publishing Group LLC
725 Broad Street
Augusta, Georgia 30901-1336
Office of the U. S. Trustee
222 West Oglethorpe Ave., Ste. 302
Savannah, GA 31401-3664
Ms. Alana R. Kyriakakis
Hull Towill Norman Barrett & Salley, PC
801 Broad St.
Suite 700
Augusta, GA 30901
Mr. Brody E. Dawson
Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg, LLP
Two North LaSalle St.
Chicago, IL 60602-3801
Honorable Samuel L. Kay,
Bankruptcy Court Clerk
P.O. Box 1487,
600 James Brown Boulevard
Augusta, Georgia 30903
Mr. James T. Wilson, Jr., PC
945 Broad Street, Suite 420
Augusta, GA 30901-7202
Ms. Kathleen Horne, Esquire
Inglesby, Falligant, Horne, Courington,
Box 1368
Savannah, GA 31402-1368
JUDITH SERAPHIN
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
IN re: MORRIS PUBLISHING GROUP, LLC, et al. Case No. 10-10134 (JSD)
Joint Administration
Hon. John S. Dalis, Bankruptcy Judge
______________________________________________________________________________
ORDER DENYING DEBTOR’S MOTION FOR FINAL DECREE
AND GRANTING INTERVENORS’ EMERGENCY MOTION FOR STAY
PENDENTE LITE
________________________________________________________________________________
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED:
1. Debtor’s Motion for Final Decree is DENIED.
2. Intervenors are invited to attend the April 28, 2010 hearing by telephone.
3. Intervenor’s Emergency Motion for Stay Pendente Lite is GRANTED.
4. No Final Decree shall be issued until after there is a final order on the appeal of this Court’s denial of intervention.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
HONORABLE JOHN S. DALIS
U.S. BANKRUPTCY JUDGE
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA
April ____, 2010
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