Settlement Called Likely in Suits by Former Register Distributors : Courts: Negotiations will continue. The suits seek $4 million on claims that the newspaper illegally withdrew circulation routes.

The Orange County Register may avoid trial in a nearly $4-million dispute with 20 former independent distributors who claim in three lawsuits that the newspaper unfairly removed them from their circulation routes last spring, lawyers for both sides said Thursday.

Orange County Superior Court Judge David H. Brickner on Thursday continued until Nov. 14 a court-ordered settlement conference, where the parties try to reach agreement to avoid a civil trial.

Lawyers for the parties said they were optimistic about a settlement, which Brickner was reluctant to support because the newspaper did not send an executive authorized to approve any deal if one had been reached.

The Register earlier this year terminated its contracts with its independent dealers, who were not newspaper employees but who had contracts with the newspaper to keep markets, stores and racks stocked with the publication. The move was made, Register officials said, to take the distribution system in-house. But the independent dealers protested that the unilateral move left them financially bleeding. Some dealers had paid up to $130,000 to purchase their routes from former dealers. The Register did not originally sell the routes, and its officials said the paper therefore was under no obligation to reimburse the dismissed independent dealers.

Eighteen of the former distributors jointly filed a suit against the newspaper demanding a minimum of $3.6 million in damages. Two other former distributors filed individual suits.

On Thursday, attorneys involved in all three suits met with the Register’s lawyer, Duffern Helsing, in Brickner’s private chambers. After a brief, closed-door session with the lawyers, the judge ordered that a representative of the newspaper’s management attend the Nov. 14 continuation of the settlement conference.

Outside the courtroom, Robert Scott Dreher, an attorney representing one of the former distributors, said Brickner had indicated that a Register management official is needed in order to bind any potential settlement.

“The Register had no one here today (from newspaper management) with authority to settle, so without that, of course, the case couldn’t settle,” Dreher said.

Dreher said he is encouraged about progress in the case. He added that he thinks that a settlement can be reached without a trial.

Similarly, Taylor Daigneault, the attorney representing 18 of the former distributors in the joint suit, said after the closed-door session that he is also encouraged. “Every time that we talk to the Register, I think that more progress is made,” Daigneault said.

Helsing, the lawyer representing the Register, said: “We’re very pleased with the progress to date, and we hope we’ll be able to get the matter settled.”