Allen & Overy's Washington, D.C., offices/photo courtesy of Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

A state appeals court ruled Thursday that a former Allen & Overy lawyer who leveled a $35 million lawsuit at the firm for sexual harassment, retaliatory discharge and emotional distress properly had her suit dismissed after she refused to submit to a court-ordered psychological exam.

In addition, Deidre Holmes Clark, once a senior attorney at the international firm, was rightfully sanctioned by the trial court for violating its sealing orders when she maliciously posted about the case on social media in an attempt to harass or injure Allen & Overy, a unanimous Appellate Division, First Department, panel decided.

The ruling was the latest chapter in a legal battle between Clark and her former firm that has spanned two continents and nine years. It began in 2009 when Clark, who'd been working in Allen & Overy's Moscow office, sued the Magic Circle law firm in London, alleging that she'd been fired improperly. That suit was thrown out on jurisdictional grounds, but Clark, a Columbia Law School graduate and member of the New York bar, brought a new lawsuit in 2011 in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The thrust of that nine-count suit, in which she represented herself, was that she was harassed and ultimately fired after a drunken sexual encounter with Tony Humphrey, a former Moscow partner at Allen & Overy. Moreover, she claimed that Allen & Overy had created a pretext for her firing, pointing to her publishing of a serialized, steamy e-novel in Moscow under her law practice name.

The novel, according to news reports, was titled “Expat” and included tales of drug taking, binge drinking and sex shows.

Some counts of the lawsuit were thrown out, but it continued for years, and Clark demanded $15 million alone for intentional infliction of emotional distress. She said her distress had manifested itself through “extreme mental and physical anguish,” according to court documents. And in deposition testimony, she testified that she suffered from eczema, hair pulling, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Louis York determined in 2014 that Clark had made her mental state a matter of controversy and granted Allen & Overy's request that Clark be examined by a psychiatrist.

In August 2016, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Kathryn Freed ruled on various motions, including granting Allen & Overy's motions to dismiss Clark's complaint pursuant to CPLR 3126 and for sanctions. Freed also, according to the panel, ordered Clark to pay $5,000 to the Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection under 22 NYCRR 130-1.1(a) and to pay Allen & Overy its costs and attorney fees incurred in bringing the sanctions motion.

On Thursday, the panel, comprised of Justices John Sweeny, Sallie Manzanet-Daniels, Angela Mazzarelli, Jeffrey Oing and Peter Moulton, affirmed Freed's rulings. The justices pointed to Clark's actions in repeatedly refusing to comply with a court order to undergo the psychiatric examination ordered in 2014.

Clark has “continued to refuse to schedule or sit for the IME [independent medical examination],” the panel wrote. The justices added that “on November 11, 2015, plaintiff appeared at the examiner's office. However, she refused to take the microphone to be audiotaped, and she informed the examiner that she would go to the police and charge him with false imprisonment and assault if he proceeded with the examination without her consent.”

“Under the circumstances,” wrote the panel, “the [trial] court properly dismissed the complaint for noncompliance pursuant to CPLR 3126.”

The panel added that the financial sanctions imposed on Clark were proper because she “violated the court's sealing orders by posting about the case to her social media networks” and “falsely represented that she had not refused to sit for the IME and that discovery had been waived.”

Clark could not be reached for comment. Nor could Rachel Fischer, a Proskauer Rose associate in New York who represented Allen & Overy.