U.S. District Judge Susan Illston refused today (April 10) to dismiss Clint Reilly’s (pictured) lawsuit against Hearst and MediaNews, paving the way for a jury trial that begins April 30, according to Reuters and Bay City News.

MediaNews, owner of 10 dailies in the Bay Area including the Mercury News, and Hearst, the Chronicle’s owner, argued that Reilly hadn’t suffered any economic harm by the consolidation of newspapers in the Bay Area and therefore didn’t have standing to sue them for antitrust. But Illston said in an order issued today:

Plaintiff has raised a genuine issue as to whether he has valid antitrust injury in this case … Even under the traditional antitrust analysis, independent of the newspaper context, plaintiff has standing as a consumer.