Three days before a federal judge was to hear testimony on Anucha Browne Sanders’s claim for compensatory damages against Madison Square Garden, the parties settled the sexual harassment case yesterday and ended all appeals.
In the settlement, the Garden agreed to pay her $11.5 million, including $4 million in legal fees, said a person with knowledge of the confidential agreement. That is $100,000 less than the punitive damages a jury awarded Browne Sanders in October. Before the settlement, she had been seeking an additional $9.6 million in compensatory damages.
The settlement potentially saved the Garden millions of dollars, but a judge also could have reduced the size of Browne Sanders’s punitive damages.
The Garden had staunchly refused to settle with Browne Sanders before the trial began in September in United States District Court in Lower Manhattan. The Garden instead opted to weather three weeks of frequently sordid testimony, none more so than that of Stephon Marbury’s sexual tryst in his truck with a team intern. (...)
