The owner of the Alaska Dispatch News has submitted a response to a $1 million lawsuit filed against her.
In the document, Alice Rogoff’s lawyers deny claims by the paper’s former editor, Tony Hopfinger, that he was wrongfully terminated at the end of last year. Instead, the response says that during an argument in the winter of 2015 Hopfinger swore at Rogoff before saying “I’ll see you in court.”
Rogoff’s lawyers also dispute that a note she jotted on a napkin promising to pay Hopfinger a hundred thousand dollars at the end of each calendar year was meant to buy his five percent ownership stake in the company. In 2012, when another stakeholder sold her five percent interest in the company, she was paid just 5 thousand dollars. Lawyers also add that the napkin contract lacks the “requisite formality or content to be enforceable.”
In a short statement send via text message, Hopfinger wrote that he strongly disagrees with Rogoff’s response, and looks forward to both sides giving depositions.