Court orders Ed Slavin to pay damages

On February 13, 2010, Historic City News reported that Judith Seraphin and Ed Slavin tried to intervene in the confirmation of the St. Augustine Record publisher’s bankruptcy plan.

They argued that the declining quality of the newspaper was the direct result of Morris family mismanagement.

Normally, the only parties who object to a bankruptcy plan are creditors.

Last year, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge John S. Dalis said the quixotic pair had no standing to object as “parties of interest” because they have no economic interests at stake, nor did they show there was a reason to be concerned a Morris bankruptcy would set a bad precedent.

“Further, they do not have standing to object on behalf of the debtor’s bondholders, and they have not alleged, much less shown, cause why they should be allowed to intervene,” Dalis wrote.

Seraphin and Slavin filed a motion to reconsider that decision. It was swiftly denied. Their last effort was a notice of appeal.

Today The Record is reporting that on Monday, U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall confirmed the Bankruptcy Court judge’s prior ruling that Ed Slavin and Judith Seraphin “had no legal right to try to shoehorn their grievances against The Record into the bankruptcy relief petitions that Morris Publishing Group filed in January 2010.”

This is not the first time Edward Adelbert Slavin , Jr., has gone afoul of the court — as Judge Hall pointed out when he ruled, Slavin should have known better “than to inappropriately inject himself into these proceedings,” since he had once been a lawyer in Tennessee; before he was disbarred.

But this time, since Slavin had already lost his license to practice law, the judge has decided to slap him in the purse; ruling that Slavin will be responsible for damages and costs for filing the frivolous appeal.

The amount of damages and costs has not yet been determined, according to the article attributed to Richard Prior.

Photo credit: © 2011 Historic City News file photographs