Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski crash trial has concluded.
On Thursday, the Goop founder was found not at fault in the case by the jury in Park City, Utah. The plaintiff Terry Sanderson was found at fault in the case.
Sanderson has been ordered to pay the actress $1 in damages. Paltrow had countersued the now-retired optometrist for the symbolic dollar as well as her legal fees, and she had denied all allegations against her in the case.
Sanderson had filed a $300,000 lawsuit against Paltrow stemming from a collision at Deer Valley resort in 2016.
Sanderson’s attorney, Lawrence D. Buhler, had claimed Paltrow crashed into Sanderson on a beginner slope, causing him to break four ribs and sustain permanent traumatic brain injury. Sanderson additionally claimed that Paltrow and her group skied away from the incident without getting him medical care.
One of Ms. Paltrow’s lawyers, Stephen W. Owens, said in his opening statement that the trial should last about two weeks and jurors will hear from about 20 witnesses, including doctors, ski instructors, Ms. Paltrow’s husband, Brad Falchuk, and her children, 16-year-old son Moses and 18-year-old daughter Apple.
On Friday, which was the fourth day of the trail, Paltrow was asked if her request for one dollar in damages is related to her friendship with Taylor Swift.
Swift sued former DJ David Mueller for battery and sexual assault and sought a symbolic $1 in damages back in 2017. Paltrow stated in court that she had not been aware of the singer’s suit and the pair are not “good friends.”
“We are friendly. I’ve taken my kids to one of her concerts before, but we don’t talk very often,” Paltrow shared.
Sanderson took the stand on Monday for Day 5, testifying that he now speaks “upside down and backward” as a result of brain damage he allegedly suffered from the collision. He additionally claimed that he heard a “blood-curdling scream”on the slope before being allegedly “hit in my back so hard.”
“I tried to move, and I could not move a limb. I couldn’t move my head. I couldn’t move my body,” he said. “Nothing was responding,” he claimed.
The 76-year-old also addressed an email he’d written to his daughters after the crash in which he stated, “I’m famous.”
“I really was trying to add a little levity to a serious situation, and it backfired,” he said of his phrasing.
On Tuesday, depositions from both Apple and Moses were read in court, with Apple saying in her testimony that she recalls her famous mother being in a “state of shock” after the crash, claiming that Paltrow had “decided she was not going to ski for the rest of the day, which she never does.”
The teen went on to recall that she had “never” seen Paltrow “shaken up like that,” adding that the actress was “very clearly visibly upset and she had some sort of pain.”
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Ski Crash Trial: Inside The Courtroom
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