An Upstate chiropractor is suing the owners of the Talking Phone Book, alleging that the company destroyed thousands of phone books instead of delivering them in an effort to artificially inflate distribution numbers that determine the cost to place an ad.

The owners of the Greenwood-based phone book company -- Hearst Holdings, Inc., and subsidiaries -- deny the allegations in the proposed class-action lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Ross Anderson is considering a request to have the complaint dismissed.

"We believe that the allegations in the complaint are without merit," Bruce Shaw -- the attorney representing Hearst, several subsidiaries and a pair of Talking Phone Book employees -- told The Greenville News. Shaw declined further comment.

Jon Newlon, an attorney for Greenwood chiropractor William B. Gray III, said that the company devised a "deliberate plan to discard and destroy phone books" to mislead potential advertisers.

The complaint alleges that beginning in 2005, representatives of the Talking Phone Book solicited Gray to become an advertiser and represented distribution numbers that exceed the numbers of phone book competitors.

However, the complaint alleges thousands of phone books were stored in Greenville, Anderson and Greenwood counties with no intention to distribute them and then were later dumped at recycling centers or in one case on private property in Greenville County in October 2007.

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