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PARK CITY — The Park City jury sided with Hollywood actor Gwyneth Paltrow Thursday, ruling that Terry Sanderson was at fault for a skiing accident between skiers seven years ago at Deer Valley Resort.
The jury heard testimony for eight days but deliberated less than three hours.
Paltrow was given $1 from the man—the amount she demanded in her suit—to account for her vacation disruption.
Paltrow left immediately after the verdict but issued a statement saying, “I felt that acquiescing in a false allegation compromised my integrity.”
She also thanked the judge and jury for their work.
“Gwyneth has a history of standing up for what she believes in, and this situation was no different,” said attorney Stephen Owens.
Paltrow approached Sanderson after the trial ended. Sanderson said she told him, “I wish you well.” He said he thanked her and later said he believed Paltrow’s feelings were sincere.
“It was a long, tough fight, but we put up a good fight,” Sanderson said.
He said he didn’t realize how much of his life would end up in this accident and that he thinks it will take time to get back to his usual life again, but he plans to spend more time with family.
“So much for the dating sites,” he joked, due to the huge amount of information available on the internet about him after the trial. Some of the things raised at trial about him are untrue, Sanderson said, and others are misleading, making a lot of something that was a small health problem.
Sanderson’s attorney, Robert Sykes, said he and his client respect the jury, though they do not agree with the decision. He said that they put a lot of effort into trying the case and that Sanderson is a good man who behaved well throughout the trial.
Six of the eight jurors, four men and four women, needed to agree with each part of the verdict, which was considered a mistake by Paltrow and Sanderson and whether the money should be awarded to either side.
The courtroom was packed with spectators and the media Thursday on the final day of the trial, and thousands more watched closing arguments live on YouTube — the first time trial proceedings were broadcast from a Utah courtroom.
Juries were tasked with deciding whether Sanderson and Paltrow were injured in a skiing collision in 2016, and whether their injuries were the other person’s fault. The judge instructed the jury that if they determined that a person was responsible for more than 50% of their injuries, no damages would be awarded.
Sanderson, a 76-year-old retired ophthalmologist who lives in Utah, filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the Hollywood actor, claiming that Paltrow confronted him while skiing at Deer Valley Resort in February 2016. He claimed that in the aftermath he suffered a concussion and fractured four . The ribs sustained during the accident caused him ongoing mental and emotional problems and made it difficult for him to enjoy life and connect with others. He was seeking $300,000. An initial $3.1 million complaint was dismissed.
Paltrow countersued for a token $1 plus attorneys’ fees, claiming that Sanderson was actually the one who hit her from behind. Last week she witnessed his skates appear between hers, and worried for a moment that she had been sexually assaulted before they fell to the ground together.
“Mr. Sanderson hit me,” she said. “Mr. Sanderson absolutely beat me up on the ski slope, and that’s the truth.”
Paltrow’s Closing Arguments
Owens said his client was a “punching bag” through most of the trial. He said the easiest thing for her would be to part with the money, but that would be a mistake and he would have sent a message to her children that she did not want to send it.
It took guts for Paltrow to come to trial, Owens said, a place where she doesn’t feel comfortable, “and gets squashed like a punching bag.”
hit her. He hurt her. Then he asked her for $3 million for fun. this is not fair.
Stephen Owens, attorney for actor Gwyneth Paltrow
Owens said, “He beat and hurt her. Then he asked her for $3 million for fun. It’s not fair.”
It’s also not fair, Owens said, for Sanderson to call a press conference and say that Paltrow came in screaming “like King Kong,” knocked him over, and then drove away—noting that the court had already determined the incident was not a “hit-and-run.” He said that such actions should not be rewarded.
Losing Paltrow from Sanderson hitting her isn’t just a half-day lost from skiing, he said, but a disruption to an important trip. Owens said the day was part of a carefully planned trip as Paltrow and her boyfriend hoped to see if their families — each with two children — would blend together. He said it was not about the dollar they asked, but about a difficult time in their relationship.
“Thank God the family got along so well,” he told the jury, “but we want our dollar.”
Owens said if the jury decides there was indeed a GoPro video of the collision — based on an email from Sanderson’s daughter shortly after the crash that he said “and believes it was all captured on a GoPro” — the jury should assume that the video would have had an impact. negative on Sanderson’s case.
Show a computer animation of the incident and talk through what they think happened to tell Paltrow’s side of the story one last time.
They presented real events and facts, James Egan, another Paltrow attorney, said, while the other side provided visualizations and embellishments.
Witness Craig Ramone allegedly wanted an attention-grabbing story to tell his friends and embellished the story, while Sanderson took his reality of declining sanity and embellished the connection between that and Paltrow.
Egan cited a witness who said Sanderson’s brain scans and reporting of mental problems rationale without thinking about the collision, and a medical record saying he felt like it had been weeks since the collision. Accepting mental health challenges is hard, the attorney said, but that doesn’t mean Paltrow caused them.
“His life is not the mess he envisions. Mrs. Paltrow also wants him off the mountain, but she shouldn’t be responsible for the cost of it,” Egan said.
Sanderson’s closing arguments
Egan was referring to closing remarks from attorney Robert Sykes, who said Sanderson never really made it off the mountain after his skiing accident in 2016. He said the 76-year-old spent hours and hours trying to better himself.
“Terry’s trying to get off that mountain,” Sykes said of his client, “but he’s still really out there. A part of Terry will forever be in the bandana run, figuratively speaking.”
Sykes told jurors that he believed Paltrow was truthful, but that did not mean her testimony was true.
I think she honestly believes she was hit in the back. The problem is that you have to make a decision based on the evidence you’ve heard here.
Robert Sykes, attorney for Terry Sanderson
“I think she honestly believes she was hit in the back,” Sykes said. “The problem is you have to make a decision based on the evidence you’ve heard here.”
He pointed out things in the story presented by Paltrow’s attorneys that did not make sense to him. Sanderson, an advanced skier, wouldn’t do wide-radius turns in a junior race, he said. He said many people heard Paltrow scream and no downhill skier screamed at something they couldn’t see. He said it was “unbelievable” to have Sanderson’s skates between Paltrow’s legs. Finally, Sykes said it didn’t make sense for two Deer Valley employees to hear that someone with four broken ribs was unwell and went down hill without filing a report.
He said Ramon, an eyewitness who said he witnessed the incident from 40 feet away, was an acquaintance of Sanderson and had no “dog in the fight.”
“He had neither reason nor motive for falsifying this,” Sykes said.
The lawyer said the main evidence in the case was a significant change in personality that Sanderson faced after the accident and his loss of his executive function and ability to organize.
Lawrence Buehler, another Sanderson attorney, said his client spends 16 hours each day dealing with his injury and should be owed a large sum of money. Compensating him at $33 for every hour he would spend for the rest of his life would amount to more than $3 million, the attorney said, but suggested that the jurors choose the number they feel would be appropriate for each hour and make their own calculations.
Buehler said the case isn’t about fame — it’s about the man’s career. A previously healthy man skiing is now unable to do this and many other activities.
He said “Terry doesn’t want to be a brain injury; he wants to live life to the fullest.”
lawyer’s charge
Before the jury was presented Thursday, Sanderson’s attorneys asked the judge to issue a directed ruling on attorneys’ fees in the case. Attorney Kristen Van Orman argued that for attorneys’ fees to be awarded in Utah, the lawsuit must be filed in “bad faith” and be “without merit.” She said that because several witnesses said Paltrow should have hit Sanderson, including one who testified that he saw the collision, the case is meritorious.
She also said that Sanderson is not acting in bad faith nor trying to take advantage of Paltrow. In this case, VanOrman said, there was an honest belief that the lawsuit was appropriate and there were no attempted fraud.
“The reason attorneys’ fees are awarded on the basis of bad faith is to punish the perpetrator, not to compensate the victim,” Van Orman said. “There is clearly evidence-based support for (Sanderson’s) allegations in this case.”
She described it as a “he said, she said” case, and she did not file a case in bad faith.
Paltrow’s attorney, Owens, said they were not allowed to address the issue of bad faith and attorneys’ fees throughout the trial, and said they would need time to respond to the request.
“I can’t be handcuffed and then slapped,” Owens said. “I need to be able to defend that allegation.”
Third Circuit Judge Kent Holmberg has said he will take that motion into consideration, and said he will handle the case after the ruling. He was not mentioned before the court immediately after the verdict was announced on Thursday afternoon, and the expected time for the decision was not available.
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