The former owners of the Salt Lake Tribune on Monday lost another legal battle in their fight to regain control of the newspaper.

U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell ruled that the McCarthey family did not have a separate agreement — an oral contract they called the "family agreement" — that would have given them, as individuals, the option to buy the newspaper five years after it merged with cable television company TCI in 1997. The family has been fighting in other lawsuits to regain control through its company, the Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., which retained management rights over the paper after the merger.

The judge also cleared several third-party defendants, including the Deseret News Publishing Co. and its owner Deseret Management Corp., of accusations they stood in the way of the McCartheys' moves to buy the paper back. Those defendants had been cleared of similar accusations in previous litigation over the paper's sale.

The McCartheys, whose family had owned the Tribune since 1901, agreed to the 1997 merger because former publisher and fellow Kearns-Tribune board member Jack Gallivan verbally promised them they would have the option to buy the paper back after five years, the five McCarthey siblings argued in court.

TCI was later purchased by AT&T, which sold the newspaper to MediaNews Group Inc. in 2001.

Campbell's ruling said the McCartheys went along with the Tribune-TCI merger in their role as Kearns-Tribune board members who approved of the written agreements creating that merger. The judge wrote that their claims of a separate oral agreement are merely a reaction to a subsequent series of events they didn't like — such as AT&T's sale of the paper — and that the claims fall flat.

"If the written merger documents did not work ... that does not allow the McCartheys to have a second bite of the apple," Campbell wrote.

The McCartheys' attorney, Barney Gesas, declined to comment on the ruling, saying several members of the McCarthey family were out of town Monday and he hadn't had time to go through it with them. He said he could not comment on whether the family would decide to appeal the decision.

MediaNews attorney Kevin Baine also declined to comment, saying, "It's the opinion of the judge, not the predictable reactions of the attorneys, that matters."

David Jordan, an attorney who represents Deseret News Publishing Co., said Campbell's ruling means "this case is over" for the Deseret Morning News, the Tribune's competitor. He called Campbell's decision "careful and reasoned" and predicted it would be upheld if appealed.

"We assume the Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co. will continue to litigate in the other cases it has filed, but that ultimately the Deseret Morning News will be vindicated," he said.

Jordan said the News, which holds a joint-operating agreement with the Tribune for printing, circulation and advertising, has found MediaNews to be a more amiable partner than the McCartheys were.

Sale of the Salt Lake Tribune - Read Deseret News' archive stories and see related links about the sale of the Tribune.

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E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com