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By Phil Milford and Greg Bensinger Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — New Times Media LLC, which merged with the Village Voice newspaper’s parent company in 2006, might face U.S. Bankruptcy Court proceedings after losing a $15.9 million judgment for ad-price manipulation, a lawyer said. New Times, an affiliate of Village Voice Media LLC, sued West Coast rival Bay Guardian Co. , asking a judge to rule it doesn’t have to pay the judgment in a dispute over advertising rates in San Francisco-area alternative papers, according to a complaint made public yesterday in Delaware Chancery Court. “You learn in civics class that when you get a judgment against you, you have to pay,” yet the Village Voice group hasn’t done so, said Tim Redmond, the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s executive editor. He said in a phone interview yesterday that the judgment has risen to $21 million, with interest. The ruling gives Bay Guardian a lien on all the Village Voice group’s newspaper properties, according to Redmond, who said Bay Guardian is considering petitioning to put the Village Voice chain into involuntary bankruptcy to collect the debt. “We’re considering all options,” including forced bankruptcy, Jay Adkisson, a lawyer representing Bay Guardian, said in a phone interview. Randall Farrimond, an attorney representing New Times Media and two affiliates named in the original suit, said such a forced bankruptcy wasn’t possible. “It is simply ludicrous to suggest that any of the companies that are not parties to the California action might somehow be facing bankruptcy as a result of that judgment,” Farrimond said in a letter. Lien Limited Farrimond said any lien would apply only to the holding companies named in the original suit. “It does not extend to the property of any other newspapers,’’ he said. Adkisson said that while Village Voice Media claims it only has enough assets to pay $80 million to lenders led by Bank of Montreal, he believes it can afford to pay the judgment based on court records showing it had $191 million in assets at the end of 2007. Adkisson said yesterday the Bay Guardian had just received the Delaware lawsuit and couldn’t immediately comment. Farrimond said the lawsuit “asks a judge to rule that the partnership or membership interests of New Times Media LLC in certain Delaware companies cannot be sold in order to satisfy the judgment against New Times Media.” Involuntary Petition Under U.S. bankruptcy law, creditors owed at least $10,000 are allowed to file an involuntary petition to put the case before a judge. Village Voice Media contends it “is entitled to an injunction preventing defendant from seeking remedies against Delaware entities that are forbidden by Delaware law,” according to court papers. “There’s not anything that we can do to prevent them from attempting to put any entity into bankruptcy, whether or not there’s actually a basis for it,” Farrimond said in an interview. “There’s nothing that has come up recently, that I am aware of, that would trigger a bankruptcy proceeding.” Farrimond’s clients include the defendants in the original ad-price lawsuit, the SF Weekly and the holding company for the East Bay Express, which has since been sold. He said the combined assets of his clients are less than Adkisson claims, without providing specifics. “The assets of SF Weekly are obviously far less than that $191 million number that Adkisson is throwing around,” Farrimond said in the letter. New Times Appeal Farrimond said assets of Village Voice Media outside of California weren’t subject to the original ruling. New Times Media has a pending appeal in California and won’t pay the amount of the judgment before the appeal has run its course, he said. Average weekly circulation for the Village Voice, founded in 1955, declined 11 percent in the six months through June 2009 to 213,358, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The SF Weekly lost 15 percent of its average weekly circulation in the period, dropping to 85,046. The case is New Times Media LLC v. Bay Guardian Co. Inc., CA5204, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington). To contact the reporters on this story: Phil Milford in Wilmington, Delaware, at pmilford@bloomberg.net ; Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net .