On a recent episode of the "World’s First Podcast," Gwyneth Paltrow opened up about her Park City skiing accident in 2016 and the ensuing civil lawsuit trial, calling the experience “everything that’s wrong with our legal system.”
After a collision on the slopes at Deer Valley Resort, retired optometrist Terry Sanderson first sued Paltrow and her son’s ski instructor for $3.1 million, but the judge at first dismissed his suit.
Both parties had claimed the other was at fault. Sanderson sued again for $300,000 in damages, and Paltrow countersued for $1.
After an 8-day trial held in March 2023, Paltrow was found to not be at fault for the incident.
“It was ridiculous, and I have to say that the idea that someone could ski into your back and knock you down and then sue you? I was like, ‘This is everything that’s wrong with our legal system,’ That’s why I felt like I had to fight it,” Paltrow said last Thursday on the podcast.
On the stand, Paltrow described the moments leading up to the crash, per the Daily Mail.
“I was skiing and two skis came between my skis, forcing my legs apart, and then there was a body pressing against me. And there was a very strange grunting noise, so my brain was trying to make sense of what was happening,” Paltrow said.
The podcast hosts said “the best thing” about watching the case was “the internal eye roll the whole time at the fact that you were there at all.”
“It was ridiculous,” Paltrow agreed. “That’s why I felt like I had to fight it. I was like, ‘I’m not going to be shaken down here.’ I’m not doing that,” she said.
On her Instagram story after the case concluded, Paltrow explained why she fought the lawsuit. “I felt that acquiescing to a false claim compromised my integrity,” she wrote.
She also thanked the jury and 3rd District Court Judge Kent Robert Holmberg for “their thoughtfulness in handling this case.”
Sanderson later said the lawsuit was “absolutely not” worth it, as his own legal fees surpassed the six-figure range, per CBS.
The trial was later turned into a musical called “I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-trial Musical.”