Inquirer withdraws lawsuit against former columnist Stu Bykofsky

The Inquirer’s parent company has withdrawn a lawsuit against former columnist Stu Bykofsky, and both sides have agreed to a settlement that ends a years-long drama that generated national headlines.

Per the settlement, Bykofsky and The Inquirer’s parent company, the Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC, agreed to not pursue future litigation against one another. The company agreed to discontinue its suit against Bykofsky, with both parties paying their own legal costs.

That lawsuit, filed in June, sought to have Bykofsky pay back a $58,738 buyout, as well as unspecified damages, for allegedly violating a separation agreement from 2019. Bykofsky, the lawsuit claimed, broke a non-disparagement clause in the wake of a viral encounter with architecture critic Inga Saffron at a July 2019 gathering marking his last day at the company.

As part of the settlement, the company agreed that the non-disparagement clause is “no longer applicable.” It declined to comment on the settlement.

During the roast-style send-off, Saffron made negative comments about Bykofsky, including a reference to what she called an “infamous column about his taste for child prostitutes in Thailand.” Published in 2011 in the Daily News, that controversial column dealt with Bykofsky’s trip to Thailand to visit a friend who, he wrote, moved there in part for “low-cost, no-guilt sex.”

Bykofsky, the Inquirer’s lawsuit said, provided a video of the confrontation taken by his girlfriend to Philadelphia magazine. The magazine posted the video, and the encounter gained substantial attention online.

Bykofsky filed a defamation lawsuit against The Inquirer’s parent company, as well as Saffron, in March 2020. In December, a jury ordered The Inquirer’s parent company to pay him $45,000 in compensatory damages, as well as for Saffron to pay him $1,000 in punitive damages.

Mark Schwartz, Bykofsky’s attorney, said that he was pleased with the company’s decision to withdraw its lawsuit and not enforce the non-disparagement clause going forward. He called the lawsuit a “mean-spirited” retaliation against Bykofsky for filing his defamation action.

“It was small-minded and petty, and it shouldn’t have been brought in the first place,” Schwartz said.

When reached for comment, Bykofsky referred The Inquirer to his website, where he has posted a column discussing the settlement.

“As a subscriber, it saddens me that a newspaper that begs for donations in full-page ads decided to waste thousands of dollars on lawyers, money that would have been better spent on quality journalism,” Bykofsky wrote. “Who makes these foolish decisions?”