Court Upholds #TheyLied Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress Award Against Student Who Accused Professor of Sexual Assault,
From Thursday’s Tenth Circuit decision in Sun v. Xu, written by Judge John Lee and joined by Judges Diane Wood and Doris Pryor:
Appellants Xingjian Sun and Xing Zhao accused their professor, Appellee Gary Gang Xu, of sexually and emotionally abusing them while the two were students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Sun and Zhao brought these allegations to UIUC administrators, and Sun later publicized them during an interview on a nationally televised morning news show {CBS This Morning}. Meanwhile, Appellant Ao Wang, a professor at Wesleyan University, learned of these allegations and posted on an online message board that Xu had a history of sexually assaulting students ….
The jury found that Sun had defamed Xu (and awarded Xu $50K on that theory), that Sun had intentionally inflicted emotional distress on Xu (awarding Xu an extra $50K for that), and that Wang had intentionally inflicted emotional distress on Xu (awarding him $300K in compensatory damages and $400K in punitives). The jury also rejected Sun’s and Zhao’s claims of rape, forced unpaid labor, and improper retaliation.
But the court threw out the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim against Wang (Xu hadn’t sued Wang for defamation, which might be because he had sued for that in Chinese court, and the Chinese court had rejected that claim):
Wang contends that no reasonable jury could find on this record that his conduct was extreme and outrageous under Illinois law. We agree.
The Illinois Supreme Court has identified three non-exclusive factors that inform whether conduct is extreme and outrageous. First, the extreme and outrageous nature of the conduct may arise from defendant’s “abuse of some position that gives him authority over the plaintiff or the power to affect the plaintiff’s interests.” Second, courts consider the reasonableness of a defendant’s belief that his objective is legitimate. Third, courts evaluate whether the defendant is aware that the plaintiff is particularly susceptible to emotional distress….
No reasonable jury could find on this record that Wang’s conduct exhibited any of these factors. Wang did not abuse a position of power over Xu, as both parties admit they barely knew each other. Nor is there any indication that Wang knew that Xu was particularly susceptible to emotional distress. The only debatable point is whether Wang reasonably believed that his objective was legitimate. In this regard, Illinois courts give greater latitude to defendants who “pursu[e] a reasonable objective even if that pursuit results in some amount of distress for a plaintiff.” Actors cannot, however, pursue that legitimate purpose in an extreme or outrageous manner.
Here, Wang consistently claimed that his objective in posting the comments was to prevent other students from being victims of Xu’s behavior. He wrote this in his online posts and repeated it at trial, stating his intention was to “do the right thing, which is to protect women, especially female students.” While Wang never raised these allegations with Xu, he testified that he believed the assertions and had heard of multiple instances of Xu’s sexual misconduct. By contrast, Xu presented no evidence at trial to contradict the
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