Nearly three years after a judge dismissed defamation and trade libel claims brought by the Abbey bar against a comedy writer and actress who alleged that she was drugged by a bartender at the West Hollywood establishment, the two sides have reached a settlement in the remainder of the case.
In Nov. 2021, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel S. Murphy said he was allowing only the Abbey’s claim for breach of contract against Haely Smalle, also known as Haely White, to go to trial. On Wednesday, the judge signed an agreement between the parties for dismissal of the case in the wake of the resolution of all issues. No terms were revealed.
In his 2021 ruling, Murphy noted that White had read online reports of others who alleged they were served spiked drinks at the Abbey, giving he a reasonable belief she had been drugged by an Abbey bartender
Therefore, White did not act with actual malice, according to the judge, who noted White’s sworn declaration.
“From all of this evidence, I concluded that, like the other people who reported similar experiences, I had been roofied during my visit to the Abbey,” White stated. “I attributed this act to a bartender, but now that I have reviewed the video provided to me by the Abbey, I can see that neither the bartender nor anyone else tampered with my drink after it was poured.”
The Abbey’s suit was filed in August 2021, seeking more than $5 million in damages. The restaurant had a substantial business loss due to White’s posting, including cancellations and a drop in customers, according to restaurant attorney Christopher Reeder, who estimated the losses at $1 million and urged the judge to allow a jury to decide whether the bar was defamed.
“This is a very important case you are deciding,” Reeder told the judge during the 2021 hearing, saying that to not properly hold White answerable would allow others to post false statements on social media, then claim later that they made a mistake. White’s actions not only hurt a business trying to recover from a year-long shutdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, but also accused a bartender of doing something he didn’t do, Reeder said.
“What Ms. White did was disgusting and this court is the forum to hold her accountable,” Reeder said.
But White’s attorney, Robert Shore, disputed the Abbey’s damage claims.
According to the suit, White went on social media Aug. 3, 2021, and said she was “severely drugged by a bartender” at the Abbey about a week earlier and encouraged people to “spread the word” and boycott the bar, the suit stated.
White also said she “never let her one drink out of her hands.”
However, Abbey video footage accounts for nearly every moment she was at the bar except for 11 minutes in which she and her female companion were in the restroom together, the suit stated.
“The footage shows that during her time at the Abbey, nothing out of the ordinary was put in her drink…” the suit stated. “At no time can any Abbey personnel, or any other person for that matter, be seen tampering with her drink.”
After her posting, the Abbey reviewed video footage and notified White that her statements were incorrect and offered to allow her to review the video of the night, which she eventually accepted, the suit stated.
“Despite notification from the Abbey of these facts, White defiantly continued to propagate her false claims, resulting in countless re-publications of her statements,” the suit stated.
The Abbey sent White, through her lawyer, a cease-and-desist letter demanding she stop making any further defamatory statements and that she post a corrective statement apologizing for her allegations.
The Abbey and White agreed to release of White from all liability conditioned on the writer prominently posting a correction statement to her various social media by a specified deadline, but the correction statement was not posted as prominently as she had promised and she breached the terms by contradicting and retracting her correction statement with another posting, the suit stated.
White subsequently tweeted, “Obviously, what happened to me that evening was shocking and painful … however, based on my review of video footage, I now believe that what happened to me that night was not the fault of The Abbey or their staff.
“…Having met with The Abbey staff to review video from the night I was there, I believe their actions demonstrate they are truly concerned about the safety of their patrons, and take measures to make their establishment safe,” she continued.
However, less than 24 hours after posting the corrective statement, White posted another statement to Instagram, which read in part:
“Since earlier publicly posted details lacked key information, it’s important you hear the entirety of what happened. The video footage that I have reviewed does not show the bartender placing anything in my drink. There is an important additional detail — the footage also shows me collapsing off the seat at a booth not long after having my drink. It shows me being assisted out of the bar by a friend … I was completely coherent in a phone conversation with my husband just 15 minutes before entering the bar, and didn’t get my drink at The Abbey until nearly 30 minutes after arriving, at least a full hour after a drink I had at dinner. I also have NEVER felt so sick in my life with one exception — when I was roofied many years ago…”