The Philadelphia Artwork Museum (PAM) is claiming in a courtroom petition filed on 20 November that Sasha Suda, the director and chief govt fired by the museum’s board earlier this month, had “misappropriated funds from the museum and lied to cowl up her theft”. The petition was filed in response to Suda’s lawsuit towards the museum on 10 November, during which she alleged “breaches of contract, dangerous religion, unfair therapy and abuse”, and requested a jury trial, damages and two years’ severance pay. The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported information of the museum’s petition.
In a press release shared with The Artwork Newspaper, a spokesperson for the museum stated: “The Philadelphia Artwork Museum has filed a petition to compel arbitration and keep judicial proceedings in response to the claims made by Sasha Suda. We’ve no additional remark right now.”
The museum’s petition claims that Suda, who was three years right into a five-year contract when she was fired, had repeatedly requested will increase in pay from the compensation committee of the museum’s board of trustees. When the committee refused, the petition claims, “Suda took the cash anyway, defying the board and violating her contract”. The petition doesn’t specify the sums that Suda allegedly misappropriated; her beginning base wage in 2022 was $720,000.
In her lawsuit, Suda claimed that she had acquired a 3% cost-of-living enhance to her wage that was according to the contract negotiated with the museum employees’ union in 2022. However she alleged that the museum’s board chair Ellen Caplan had “fabricated a false narrative round Suda’s compensation” as a pretext to conduct a “forensic investigation” of her compensation and bills, and, finally a second vote-of-confidence during which the board’s govt committee elected to fireside her.
“The museum’s accusations are false,” Luke Nikas, a lawyer with the agency Quinn Emanuel who’s representing Suda, advised The Artwork Newspaper in a press release. “These are the identical recycled allegations from the sham investigation that the museum manufactured as a pretext for Suda’s wrongful termination.”
The museum’s petition requires Suda’s allegations to be handled by way of arbitration, asserting that neither her “meritless breach of contract declare, nor her delusional allegations of victimhood and persecution” should be heard in courtroom.
“The movement, in addition to its false narrative, matches the [PAM]’s longstanding sample of attempting to cowl up its misconduct and mistreatment of workers,” Nikas stated. “We anticipated the museum would favor to cover the sordid particulars about its illegal therapy of Sasha Suda in a confidential arbitration. If the museum had nothing to cover, it will not be afraid to litigate in state courtroom the place we filed the case.”
The day after it filed its petition accusing Suda of theft, the PAM appointed the previous Metropolitan Museum of Artwork director and chief govt Daniel Weiss to exchange her. In her lawsuit, Suda claims that Weiss—who beforehand served as a governance advisor to the museum—had advised her of the PAM’s management: “It’s a very dysfunctional board.”
