Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 17, 1992 TAG: 9203170140
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The attorney for Collins Knighton mailed his client's answer to the original suit by Pulaski station WSPK Friday, along with a suit seeking $25,000 in compensatory damages and $50,000 in punitive damages.
Trial on the entire matter is scheduled for April 13 in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
Knighton was fired Feb. 3 by WSPK General Manager Mike Gummer and given a $2,000 cashier's check in return for signing an agreement not to work for a competing station for a year.
Knighton returned the uncashed check two weeks later after landing a similar job at WRIQ, based at Fairlawn, where he did the same kind of morning show he had done at WSPK.
WSPK secured an injunction March 2 prohibiting Knighton from continuing to work at the Fairlawn station until the matter could be settled in court.
Knighton's countersuit, besides seeking the damages, asks that the suit against him be dismissed and that the injunction order be held void.
Meanwhile, Knighton's listeners have set up collection points at New River Valley Mall and elsewhere seeking money to help him while he is not working.
"I feel real awkward doing this," he said Monday. "It is relieving some but not much of the pressure, but it is helping and it is very much appreciated."
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Wednesday, March 18, 1992.
Some of Pulaski radio station WPSK's call letters were reversed in a Tuesday New River Current article.
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Memo: CORRECTION