Industry News
Hollywood A-Lister Gwyneth Paltrow will stand trial in Park City, UT, on Tuesday over an alleged hit and run ski accident at Deer Valley Resort, UT, in 2016 that left a man with life-changing injuries.
In the 2019 lawsuit, retired optometrist Terry Sanderson alleges that on Feb. 26, 2016, Oscar-winning actress Paltrow was skiing “out of control” and that she hit him from behind, “knocking him down, landing on top of him, and causing him to suffer a concussion, brain injury, and four broken ribs.” He initially sued her for damages above $3.1 million for the alleged “hit-and-run ski crash” claiming she hit him and then skied away as he lay in the snow with serious injuries, reported the Salt Lake Tribune. Three weeks later, Paltrow countersued, claiming it was, in fact, Sanderson that hit her.
In May 2022, a Utah judge dismissed some claims, ruling that it was not a hit-and-run ski crash as the lawsuit claimed. After hearing arguments from Paltrow’s attorneys, Judge Kent Holmberg dismissed the claims that she negligently inflicted emotional distress and that Sanderson was entitled to punitive damages. Sanderson is still seeking over $300,000 from the lawsuit, maintaining that Paltrow negligently caused his injuries. The damages awarded are an amount to be proven at trial.
Sanderson said he was skiing with five friends when he “heard this just hysterical screaming like … King Kong in the jungle or something” and that Paltrow struck him in the back seconds later, breaking his ribs, giving him a concussion, and causing a “closed brain injury,” which one of Sanderson’s attorneys compared to shaken baby syndrome.
After the collision, “Paltrow got up, turned and skied away, leaving Sanderson stunned, lying in the snow,” according to the lawsuit.
Sanderson, who was 69 at the time of the collision, is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. He said he was skiing slowly when Paltrow hit him at full speed.
Paltrow’s attorney in Utah, Stephen W. Owens, referred questions to the actress’s publicist, who emailed this statement: “This lawsuit is completely without merit, and we expect to be vindicated.” According to Sykes, Paltrow’s lawyers “don’t deny the collision. Their position is that Gwyneth Paltrow was downhill, and Terry Sanderson hit Gwyneth Paltrow.”
Sanderson initially reached out to Paltrow, hoping for a settlement, but when he didn’t receive a response, he hoped to be “vindicated” through the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was also filed against Paltrow’s ski instructor and the Deer Valley Resort Company. Deer Valley’s request to be dismissed from the case was denied in August 2019.
The trial is scheduled to begin 21st March 2023 and will last eight days.
An unconscious coupling as opposed to a conscious uncoupling??