By Staff Report
A Kansas woman who obtained a settlement in her case against the owner and operator of an Owasso-based news website covering Fort Smith received a check for $4000 last week, according to information from the Kansas Department of Labor.
Grant Merrill, dba Great Plains Digital Media and locally as "Inside Fort Smith" was ordered to make restitution to his former Kansas employee Olivia Haselwood, who the KDOL said was entitled to two-and-a-half months of salary after she continued to work for the company with the promise of "being caught up" by the defendant.
The original declaration by the court in Kansas called for Merrill to make restitution of back wages and penalties totaling $7875. Merrill's attorney reached out to Haselwoodand offered a settlement of $4000, which she accepted after getting approval from the KDOL.
"His lawyer called me and said they would pay $4000 or we could go to court," said Haselwood. "I called the KDOL and we discussed it. When it was all said and done, considering legal expenses and such, I came out with about the same amount of money anyway with less hassle."
"Funny thing is, he only stiffed me for something like $900 in wages and the rest was penalties and interest," said Haselwood, who found employment with the state of Kansas after Merrill shut down his Kansas websites. "I figured I would put this one in the bank and hoped it wouldn't bounce like the others did."
Great Plains Digital Media owned and operated three news sites in the Wichita area at the time of Haselwood's employment, serving bedroom communities in towns like Andover and El Dorado.
Haselwood was an employee of the company from November 2016 through October 2017 and reported that she was paid 'intermittingly" during her employment. She was behind on her pay several times during her employment but Merrill always "caught her up" despite being late and bouncing paychecks.
(Disclaimer: During the same time period, Merrill started Inside Fort Smith in 2017. Today in Fort Smith owner and publisher Dennis McCaslin was his local employee. After a year of experiencing the same fiscal treatment that Haselwood went through, and being short-changed a substantial amount in wages and promised commissions, McCaslin left his employment on October 31, 2017 an d started 'Today in Fort Smith'.)
Merrill maintains Inside Fort Smith, which is updated on a sporadic basis, and also started another digital publication, Inside Owasso, in the Tusla suburb. He runs his Fort Smith operation remotely from that location with the help of a family member.
Merrill was also the target of a 2014 lawsuit by Curtis Arnold and Saline River Media in which it was alleged he mismanaged funds provided to him as a loan by the company when he was the owner/operator of KEWI-AM radio station in central Arkansas.
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