Perhaps not surprisingly, Liang Wang, the principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic and one of the subjects of a highly unflattering and controversial article discussed in previous posts (aka “The Article”) has sued New York Magazine, Vox Media, and The Article’s author Sammy Sussman for defamation, asking for damages of $100 million.
To quote:
Defendants’ purpose in writing and publishing the article was to weave a narrative that depicts Wang (and another Philharmonic musician, Matthew Muckey) as having committed a crime against a third musician, Cara Kizer, in Vail, Colorado, in 2010. Specifically, the article implies that Wang put a date rape drug into Kizer’s wine, so that Muckey could sexually assault her. The article also implies that Wang (in addition to Muckey) was fired by the Philharmonic in 2018 for this supposed conduct against Kizer—and that the two musicians were reinstated only because an arbitrator failed to credit what the article portrays as compelling evidence of guilt.
That story is a total fabrication: Wang did not drug Kizer, nor is there any evidence whatsoever for that wildly irresponsible contention. Moreover, the notion that Wang wanted to drug Kizer so that someone else (Muckey) could sexually assault her, is absurd. Further, and also contrary to the article’s implication, neither Kizer nor the Philharmonic ever even accused Wang of drugging Kizer.
I wonder why Wang’s lawyers think that the notion of one guy drugging a woman so that one of his “best friends” could rape her is “absurd.” Have they never heard of "wingmen"?
I think it is fair to say that there is an implication one could draw from the article that Wang drugged Kizer. There are three portions of the article that could support that implication. The first is this one:
When they got to Muckey’s condo, he and Wang got in the hot tub and tried to persuade Kizer to join them, but she declined. Kizer alleged that Wang brought her a glass of red wine. Wang later told the police that Kizer got her own wine.
What was not disputed is that Kizer has no memories of what happened after she drank from that glass.
The second is this:
There was no evidence, however, that Kizer had been drugged. Wang denied that he had given Kizer anything, and Muckey continued to insist that the sex was consensual. [Vail Police Detective Rusty] Jacobs worried that his investigation had reached a dead end.
Kizer began researching date-rape drugs. The ten-panel test she’d taken in Colorado didn’t include a test for GHB, which produced symptoms similar to those she’d experienced the night of July 24, so Kizer sent a sample of her hair to a private lab. On February 9, 2011, she got the results. A six-centimeter hair sample was “positive for the presence of GHB.” Later testing suggested the exposure occurred around the month of the alleged assault.
…
Jacobs sent the case file to the Fifth Judicial District Attorney’s Office with a memo recommending that charges be filed, but the DA declined to prosecute Muckey. Jacobs was told that the hair-follicle test “did not meet the standards for litigation.” (One forensic toxicologist called the practice of testing for date-rape drugs in hair follicles “controversial.”)
The third is this:
In early 2018, a few months after reporting about Harvey Weinstein’s pattern of predation ignited the Me Too movement, the Philharmonic returned to the allegations Kizer made against Muckey. The organization hired Barbara S. Jones, a former federal judge, to conduct an independent investigation. In addition to Kizer’s claims, the orchestra learned about the earlier rape allegation against Muckey and unrelated allegations of sexual misconduct against Wang. (Muckey and Wang denied the allegations.)
Over a six-month, $336,573 investigation, Jones interviewed 22 individuals and reviewed “extensive documentary evidence.” The Philharmonic concluded that the two men had “engaged in misconduct warranting their termination.”
Muckey and Wang were fired in September 2018. Nearly all the details of the investigation were withheld from the public. A New York Times article on the subject was headlined “New York Philharmonic Dismisses 2 Players for Unspecified Misconduct.”
There is nothing in the article that states as a fact that Wang drugged Kizer; only a report of her statement that Wang had brought her a glass, which he disputed. The statements about GBH seem factually correct to me. And the reporting on the terminations in 2018 also seem factually accurate.
As best I can tell on a first reading, Wang’s lawyers rely solely on what they claim the article implies, rather than what the article actually says. And the implication is created, in their view, by the omission of what they claim are facts:
In sum, Sussman and New York Magazine, in the service of their preconceived narrative, included only dubious claims selectively manipulated to appear to support the notion of Wang drugging Kizer, while deliberately not reporting the actual facts that revealed strong reasons to doubt how the article portrays the drugging allegation.
Many (but not all) of those facts are supposedly contained in the arbitration award, from which they selectively quote. They justify doing so here:
The arbitration hearing testimony was confidential, and the arbitration decision, which discusses that testimony, is therefore also considered a private document, to the extent that it necessarily discusses that testimony in support of its findings. Nevertheless, certain narrow aspects of the arbitration decision long ago became the subject of public discussion, beginning with a public statement issued by then Philharmonic President Debora Borda on April 5, 2020 about the result of the arbitration, which specifically quoted from the arbitration decision. More recently, Sussman claimed to have reviewed the arbitration decision (without revealing how he obtained it) and also quotes selectively (and misleadingly) from the arbitration decision in the article. Because portions of the arbitration decision that the article did not quote refute the article’s defamatory implications and are otherwise relevant to the fault burden of the defamation claim, this Complaint quotes portions of the arbitration decision, but does not attach it: the arbitration decision quotes and paraphrases the testimony of witnesses, to whom representations were made that their testimony would remain private. We are prepared to submit the arbitration decision to the Court, in camera, at the Court’s request.
The problem, of course, is that the outside observer lacks the context to judge the importance, or even accuracy, of anything quoted from the arbitration award. And that means that no quotes from it can really be taken at face value - especially in a document written to try to win $100 million from a media company for defamation.
So, absent the unlikely release of the entire arbitration award, there will remain no way to understand why Muckey and Wang were terminated at the same time, or why their cases (which, according to Wang’s lawyers, were not related in any way) were lumped together in one arbitration - something that struck me as very odd from the beginning. Is it really surprising that people would conclude that their terminations were likewise linked? Or that many people also concluded that the terminations has something to do with what happened in Vail? William of Occam would very likely have reached the same conclusion.
I am going to try to find a way to make the actual lawsuit available (or at least most of it), but it’s too late at night to figure out why Google Drive won’t let me do that.
Hi Robert,
Seems like Jeremy hasn't updated you on the docket recently. After the judge stayed discovery a few months ago, this case was dismissed yesterday. You might be interested in the rationale the judge provided for the dismissal: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.622027/gov.uscourts.nysd.622027.67.0.pdf.
Posted by: Sammy Sussman | January 14, 2025 at 01:52 PM
Hi Robert. If you're having trouble uploading, readers can find the court filings (at least on this turn) for free here:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68560468/1/wang-v-sussman/
Posted by: Jeremy Zweig | May 24, 2024 at 01:13 PM