A trio of judges on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Friday threw out the McCarthey family's appeal of a lower court, saying their oral contract claims are superseded by written contracts that spelled out how they could regain the paper they sold 10 years ago.

"This is the outcome that we expected," said William Dean Singleton, MediaNews chief executive and The Tribune's publisher.

"We knew the judge was right. It would be inconceivable to overrule a written contract with somebody's recollection of a so-called oral agreement," Singleton said.

Phil McCarthey, who represents the McCarthey family, did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell ruled in April 2006 that the McCarthey family did not prove that an oral agreement was negotiated on their behalf that would allow them to regain the paper in the event that the written agreement failed to protect their interests.

Campbell also said that even if an oral contract had been struck in 1997, when the McCartheys sold the paper to Telecommunications Inc. in a lucrative stock deal, it would be unenforceable under Utah law. TCI later was acquired by AT&T Corp., which sold the paper to MediaNews in 2001.

Unhappy with Campbell's decision, the McCartheys appealed to the 10th Circuit.

In their ruling, the appellate court judges sided with MediaNews lawyers who argued in May that any family agreement rights to reacquire Utah's biggest paper were integrated into the written agreement that was acceptable to the McCartheys at the time of the sale.

The appellate court ruling does not affect a trial set to begin later this summer and a possible second trial next year.

Last week, a U.S. District Court judge allowed a claim by the McCartheys and their company, Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., to proceed to trial in September. That trial deals with the validity of an appraisal of The Tribune by Management Planning Inc., which was hired by SLTPC and MediaNews to help determine the value of the paper.

The McCartheys want a jury to set the appraisal aside and declare that it is so flawed that it can't be used to set the price that the family would pay to buy back The Tribune. The family is also asking for damages from MPI.

The purpose of the February trial is less clear. Lawyers for the McCartheys have said that the family no longer wants the paper back because MediaNews has so damaged the assets of the paper that it has breached the terms of the written contract.

Instead, the McCartheys appear to want the court to give them some part of The Tribune's intellectual property, as well as damages for having interfered with the family's right to regain the paper.