Court grants Philadelphia Art Museum’s requested arbitration with former director and CEO Sasha Suda

In December, former Philadelphia Art Museum director and CEO Sasha Suda had pushed for a trial with jury to settle her wrongful-termination lawsuit against her former employer. The Art Museum argued for arbitration.

On Friday, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Michael E. Erdos settled the question with a ruling — in favor of arbitration. Erdos directed Suda to submit her claim against the museum in arbitration, per the terms of her employment contract.

The museum in a statement Saturday said that it was pleased with Erdos’s ruling “reaffirming the requirement to arbitrate as previously agreed to in the employment agreement, which is the best use of the resources of all — including the court’s." The statement added that the museum “will now return to our focus on the museum’s mission of bringing art and inspiration to the people of Philadelphia.”

Suda’s lawyer, Luke Nikas of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said Saturday that “the court’s procedural, one-sentence decision requiring arbitration has no relevance to the outcome of this case.”

“We are not surprised that the museum wants to hide its illegal conduct in a confidential arbitration,” he said, “but we will hold the museum accountable wherever the case is heard.“

Suda filed her lawsuit Nov. 10, less than a week after being fired by the museum, arguing that the dismissal was “without a valid basis.” The museum responded by calling the suit “without merit.”

Tensions between Suda and the board over authority in running museum matters were cited in court filings. The former director said she was hired in 2022 to “transform a struggling museum, but was later terminated when her efforts to modernize the museum clashed with a small, corrupt, and unethical faction of the board intent on preserving the status quo.”

» READ MORE: How can the Philadelphia Art Museum move past the turmoil? Daniel H. Weiss has a few ideas.

In a court filing, the museum responded by saying Suda was dismissed after an investigation determined that she “misappropriated funds from the museum and lied to cover up her theft.”

Suda was let go Nov. 4, three years into a five-year contract. With her lawsuit, she sought two years’ pay, as well as “significant damages for the museum’s repeated and malicious violations of the non-disparagement and confidentiality clauses in her employment agreement, and an injunction enforcing the confidentiality and non-disparagement terms of her agreement,” Nikas said.

Less than three weeks after Suda’s dismissal, the museum named Daniel H. Weiss — who formerly led the Metropolitan Museum of Art — its new director.