Judge Bans OC Register From Reporting On Its Own Lawsuit

In a case that’s sure to be studied by media law students for years to come, Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez has “ordered The Orange County Register not to publish any articles about witness testimony in a $100 million class-action lawsuit brought by newspaper delivery workers.”

The judge also fined the paper’s parent company, Freedom Communications, Inc., $23,792.50 for “intentionally and willfully destroy(ing) evidence.”

Of course, we learned about this case in, um, the Orange County Register, so it’s not clear how effective Velasquez’s gag order is going to be — in fact, Register EIC Ken Brusic seems not to have made a decision about whether to defy the judges order and publish witness testimony in reporting about the case.

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