In a ruling on one of the art world’s notable #MeToo lawsuits, a court found that Artforum magazine can be held responsible for retaliation against a former employee — but that Knight Landesman, the influential former publisher whom the employee accused of sexual harassment, legally remains in the clear.

Amanda Schmitt, who started at Artforum in 2009 when she was 21, filed a complaint in late 2017. Mr. Landesman — accused in the lawsuit of groping, attempting to kiss, sending lewd messages to, or otherwise harassing at least nine women in incidents stretching back a decade — resigned hours later. The other women were not named as plaintiffs.

Early last year, the lawsuit was dismissed. Last week, in a ruling first reported by Artnet News, a New York appeals court affirmed the dismissal of the retaliation claim against Mr. Landesman but ruled that Ms. Schmitt should be allowed to try to prove her claim against Artforum. (Lawyers for Artforum and Mr. Landesman declined to comment on Thursday.)

Rather than suing for workplace sexual misconduct, for which the statute of limitations had run out, Ms. Schmitt filed a suit accusing Mr. Landesman of retaliating against her. Mr. Landesman cornered her at a restaurant in May 2017 and demanded an explanation for having been “unfairly accused,” she said. Too much time, however, had passed between her employment at Artforum — Ms. Schmitt left the magazine in 2012 — and the confrontation for it to qualify as retaliation, the lower court judge ruled in January 2019.