The legal battle for control of the Salt Lake Tribune — a case that has been a fixture in Utah's federal courthouse since December 2000 — returns to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver today.

The appeals court will review the three-part appraisal process that set at $355.5 million the amount former owners of the paper would have to pay to exercise a 1997 option to buy the paper back. The price was upheld this past fall by U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart.

Arguing the price was at least $100 million too high, Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co. (SLTPC) declined to meet the Oct. 10, 2003, closing deadline and chose instead to take the debate to the federal appeals court.

The 10th Circuit will hear arguments today but has no set time limit in which to make a ruling.

Philip McCarthey, SLTPC chairman, remains as certain as he was a year ago that his side will prevail on appeal.

"We are obviously very confident that the 10th Circuit isn't going to uphold somebody coming up here and trying to steal $150 million from this community," McCarthey said last week. "And that's what this is all about."

Tribune owner MediaNews Group Inc. believes the ultimate question on appeal is whether there are sufficient legal grounds to overturn the appraisal.

"This is a straightforward appeal from a district court decision declining to upset an appraisal that the parties had agreed in advance would be 'final, binding and conclusive,' " MediaNews attorneys wrote in their brief to the 10th Circuit.

"Although appellant Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Company (SLTPC) seeks to confuse the issue with rhetoric like 'hostile takeover,' 'hijacking' and conspiracies to 'silence the editorial voice' of the Salt Lake Tribune, those charges are as irrelevant to this appeal as they are baseless."

Denver-based MediaNews took over editorial control of the Tribune in July 2002. Although the ownership has been mired in legal matters, CEO William Dean Singleton said the experience has so far been a good one.

"The Tribune is an outstanding newspaper in an outstanding market that I've really liked for 20 years," Singleton said. "It's one of our prize newspapers."

To succeed on appeal, SLTPC must convince the three-judge panel in Denver that Stewart made a mistake when he refused to overturn the final appraisal in the three-part process. The disputed $331 million valuation was the final appraisal, and, when averaged with a prior $380 million assessment, resulted in the $355.5 million price tag.

An appraisal firm hired by SLTPC set the Tribune's value at $218 million. The $380 million figure came from MediaNews' firm.