BOISE - A battle between two Boise newspapers went all the way to the state’s highest court, with the smaller Idaho Business Review beating out the larger Idaho Statesman.

The Statesman sued over legal notices in 2006.  Attorneys for Boise’s daily paper laid claim to the exclusive right to publish legal notices in its paper.  The Business Review also publishes the notices in its weekly paper, but the Statesman claimed a clause in Idaho code gave it the right because it is the largest circulation paper in the area.

The battle centered on notices placed by non-government entities.  The Statesman said the law applied to all legal notices, while the Business Review said that any notice placed by businesses and private individuals could run in either paper – or both.

Supreme Court Justices said a clause in the state’s constitution means the Business Review can charge for legal notices because of the way the law’s title was written.

Justices said statutes must only deal with one issue – and that issue must be outlined in the law’s title.  The title of the 1994 law limiting legal ads to the largest paper specifically refers to “governmental entities.”

The Business Review said the Statesman was trying to corner the market on lucrative legal ads.

“The Statesman was attempting to gain a monopoly on the publication of a broad scope of legal notices contrary to the Idaho Constitution and, we believe, the Legislature’s intent when they amended the act in 1994,” IBR attorney Newal Squyres said.

In 2007, a lower-court decision blocked IBR from charging for legal notices, but the paper continued to run them free of charge. Publisher Rick Carpenter said it had lost out on $500,000 in revenue because of the Statesman’s lawsuit.

Statesman publisher Mi Ai Parrish refused to answer questions by NewsChannel 7, and instead an assistant referred us to a story “that ran in the newspaper.” The Statesman story contained only one comment from Parrish.

"We're disappointed," Parrish told reporter Joe Estrella.

“It’s huge,” Idaho Business Review publisher Rick Carpenter said. “It’s probably ten percent of our annual revenue.  When we lost the district court decision, some of our clients went to the Statesman. We’re going to try and get them back.”

Carpenter said his paper will resume charging for legal ads right away.