A New York Times Pulitzer finalist almost killed her best friend in a car crash by driving down the wrong side of the road in Scotland, according to a lawsuit seen by Heat Street.
Sarah Maslin Nir (pictured) who wrote a controversial exposé on alleged exploitation in New York City’s nail salons, has been named in legal documents as the woman responsible for the smash, which hospitalized horse riding instructor Leah Epstein for months.
The crash took place about two months after the article was published, while nail salon owners were still protesting outside of the Times‘ headquarters.
Nir and Epstein, both Americans, were traveling together in rural Scotland on a dream vacation at the time.
An account of the incident from Epstein’s attorneys tells how Nir was behind the wheel of a Ford Focus rental car when it hit another vehicle on a narrow Aberdeenshire road in September 2015.
Epstein was in the back of the car, according to a complaint filed in Epstein’s name in New York County Supreme Court.
It claims Nir negligently drove down the right-hand lane into an oncoming car, causing the crash (in Britain, traffic drives on the left):
The lawsuit describes horrific and debilitating injuries Epstein sustained in the resultant smash. Her attorneys are seeking damages of $4.75million.
It says the crash caused her to suffer a concussion, fractured part of her spine, damaged her lungs and liver, perforated her bowels and gave her sepsis.
She required open abdominal procedures, spinal surgery and several blood transfusions, according to the document. Sources close to the family say that for a time it was uncertain whether she would survive.
A GoFundMe site set up after the accident noted the difficultly of her recovery and emphasized that she would face “huge medical bills”.
Heat Street understands that Nir and Epstein – close friends for years – were in Scotland on vacation.
Nir is understood to have been working on a “personal journey” story about the trip for publication in the Times‘s travel section.
The lawsuit argues that Nir should be considered a Times employee because of the planned article – and says the Times expenses account paid for her flights, hotel and the rental car.
The piece was never published, for understandable reasons.
However, Nir didn’t entirely jettison her journalistic instincts at what must have been a time of great distress, and continued to comment on the backlash caused by her nail salon report while Epstein was still in hospital.
Times sources, speaking to Heat Street, claim that Nir and Epstein are still friends despite the ligation, and note that Epstein has recovered from her injuries.
A spokesman for the newspaper confirmed that the litigation is under way. The Times‘ attorney denied all of the allegations about the crash and Nir’s driving in a response filed to the court.
A statement from the New York Times said: “The company has no first-hand knowledge of the facts. As in any accident case, discovery will determine whether the complaint is accurate or not.”
A decision on the lawsuit may hinge on the delicate question of whether Nir was acting as a Times employee at the time of the crash. Many Times staff write about their personal vacations for the Travel section in exchange for some form of reimbursement or extra compensation, but whether this constitutes being “on assignment” for the Times may be an issue for the court to decide.
As a result of Nir’s nails story, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo passed emergency measures to stop the alleged abuse of salon employees – but many involved in the nail industry took issue with her reporting.
Nir, a graduate of New York’s exclusive Brearley girls’ prep school and Columbia, was nominated for a Pultizer for the report, but critics said she based her reporting on mistranslated job ads, and overstated the scale of wrongdoing.
Several articles were publishing attacking her piece, prompting a back-and-forth between Times editors and a respected former Times reporter. During the controversy, the New York Post hinted that Nir may have been extensively editing her Wikipedia page to defend her article.
The Times’s public editor eventually concluded that Nir’s piece “went too far” and risked the paper’s “reputation for accuracy and rigor”, though she stood by its overall conclusions.
Nir’s reporting on other stories has prompted numerous official corrections in the Times as well.
