Gwyneth Paltrow has been called out for her bare knuckle legal tactics in a new documentary about her ski collision trial that took place last March.
The upcoming documentary claims that the Goop founder’s lawyers were ‘unkind and unfair’ during the case brought by Terry Sanderson, 76, who claimed that she hit him from behind in 2016 at the Deer Valley ski resort in Utah and left him with four broken ribs and a permanent brain injury.
Sanderson’s former partner Karlene Davidson says in ‘Gwyneth vs Terry: The Ski Crash Trial’ that it ‘broke my heart’ that Paltrow’s attorneys ‘turned his daughters against each other.’
She says that Paltrow only won the high-profile case because the jury in Park City, Utah, home to the Sundance Film Festival, was ‘slanted’ by her celebrity.
After eight days of testimony, the jury took just two hours to find that Sanderson was ‘100 percent’ to blame for the crash and awarded Paltrow the token $1 she was seeking in damages.
An upcoming documentary ‘Gwyneth vs Terry: The Ski Crash Trial’ gives an inside look at the ski crash trial and claims that Gwyneth Paltrow used vicious legal tactics to win
Sanderson was found ‘100 percent’ to blame for the crash and Paltrow was awarded the token $1 she was seeking in damages
Terry Sanderson alleged he was left with four broken ribs and a permanent brain injury. Paltrow denied crashing into the retiree and countersued, saying he was the one who skied into her – leaving her angry and sore
The 2016 crash was at Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah. Sanderson sought damages in excess of $3.1 million after the accident but a judge dismissed his original claim of hit-and-run and it is now a $300,000 claim against Paltrow
Sanderson’s former partner Karlene Davidson says in the documentary that Paltrow only won the case because the jury was ‘slanted’ by her celebrity
Also appearing in the film is Samantha Jurie, one of the jurors who ruled in Paltrow’s favor, who said that Sanderson ‘lost credibility’ when Paltrow’s lawyers played a montage of photos of him going on vacation after the accident, which he claimed ruined his life.
‘Gwyneth vs Terry’, which streams on Max in the US and Discovery+ in the UK on Monday, gives fresh insight into a David vs Goliath battle which transfixed the nation.
Paltrow in a social media post the year before the accident at Deer Valley resort in Utah. She captioned the post: ’20 years later and I still got it #justlikeridingabike’
The Goliath was Paltrow, the 50-year-old founder of the luxury wellness brand Goop who is worth $200m and won an Oscar for her role in Shakespeare in Love.
Her adversary, Sanderson, was twice divorced and a retired optometrist who claimed she let out a ‘blood curdling’ scream when she hit him while distracted by waving to her children Apple and Moses, who were also on the slopes.
Paltrow strongly denied this and always maintained that Sanderson was the one who went into the back of her.
The documentary revisits the brutal cross examination of Sanderson by Paltrow’s lawyers from a Utah law firm usually hired by health insurers to dispute patients’ claims.
Sanderson, a father-of-three, was asked by Paltrow’s attorney Steve Owens why his youngest daughter Jenny didn’t speak to him for 13 years.
He was also asked about whether, as Jenny claimed in a deposition, he was controlling and abusive towards her.
A tearful Davidson says in the documentary: ‘He (Sanderson) was very close with his girls, they loved him.
‘When they turned his daughters against each other, that bothered me a lot because I knew all those girls.
‘It broke my heart. That was unfair, that was unkind, not an accurate description at all of what was happening with that family.’
Davidson insists that Sanderson’s personality change after the crash ‘had to have been created by something.’
She says: ‘It was an overnight kind of thing so it had to be the accident.
‘He couldn’t stay as energized and connected so he pulled away and pushed me away to almost save me from having to deal with whatever was going on with him.’
Wiping away tears, she admitted that she still had feelings for Sanderson.
Davidson said: ‘I didn’t want that relationship to end and to see afterwards it didn’t have to.
‘I guess that was the harder part, to realize something could have happened there. I could have stayed with the man I adore’.
Gwyneth Paltrow took the stand in court in Utah. She went viral after saying that the worst she suffered from the crash was losing half a day of skiing, a moment which instantly became a meme
During the trial Paltrow’s fashion choices were critiqued almost as much as her testimony, with her style praised by fashion critics
Terry Sanderson, 76, said he was ‘living another life’ after the collision with Paltrow on a Utah ski slope, which he says left him with broken ribs and severe brain injuries
Terry Sanderson’s daughters Polly (left) and Shae (right) testified at their father’s case. Davidson said it ‘broke my heart’ when Paltrow’s attorneys ‘turned his daughters against each other’
Samantha Jurie, the juror, says in the documentary that she found Paltrow’s evidence convincing, especially when the actress described thinking briefly she was being sexually assaulted when Sanderson hit her from behind.
Jurie said: ‘When something like that happens when you feel like you’re being sexually assaulted, that’s a different kind of memory where you’ll always be traumatized by it.
‘Gwyneth Paltrow did not seem dismissive to Terry’s injury or anything caused by the accident however she was very clear this accident was not her fault.’
Jurie was not convinced by Craig Ramon, Sanderson’s friend who was the only person who saw the moment of collision.
She said that he ‘became very flustered’ while being cross examined and his answers kept changing.
‘It was really hard for the jury to understand what was the truth from Craig Ramon’s testimony’, Jurie said.
By contrast, Jurie found Eric Christiansen, who was the ski instructor out with Paltrow’s son Moses at the time of the crash, to be ‘consistent’ in his account, which blamed Sanderson.
One of the key witnesses for Jurie was Irving Scher, Paltrow’s biomechanics expert, who created computer simulations which took into account all the eyewitnesses.
The simulations showed that the only possibility was that Sanderson was uphill from Paltrow and collided with her.
Jurie said: ‘In the skiers code a most important rule, if you’re an uphill skier you have to be avoiding the path of a downhill skier to avoid a collision’.
During the trial Paltrow’s fashion choices were critiqued almost as much as her testimony, with her earthy tones praised by fashion critics.
She went viral after saying that the worst she suffered from the crash was losing half a day of skiing, a moment which instantly became a meme.
During her cross examination, Paltrow was asked if she had ever given ‘intimate gifts’ to Taylor Swift, apparently referring to a vibrator she put in her Christmas stocking in an online video.
According to juror Samantha Jurie, what really swung it for them was the photographs Sanderson posted on Facebook showing him taking dozens of vacations – including going skiing – after the crash
Sanderson had originally demanded $3.1million but that was lowered to $300,000 when a judge dismissed claims Paltrow negligently inflicted emotional distress with punitive damages.
That left him with one allegation of ‘simple negligence,’ the same claim that Paltrow counter sued him over for a token $1, plus legal fees.
According to Jurie, what really swung it for them was the photographs Sanderson posted on Facebook showing him taking dozens of vacations – including going skiing – after the crash.
She said: ‘The picture that was painted was that this man that was unable to travel, unable to function, unable to have friends yet was able to travel the world. It didn’t add up
‘It was almost black and white at the end, there was no way the collision could have happened in the way it happen’.
Davidson lashed out and said that Paltrow’s fame helped her.
She says in the film: ‘I believe the jury had to be slanted in their opinions. Park City didn’t want to lose their celebrity status of stars coming in and what they had to offer at Deer Valley’.
Alina Fong, a neuropsychologist who treated Sanderson and testified on his behalf, said it was ‘very disheartening’ that her recommendation that he go traveling to help his recovery was ‘turned around and used against him as part of an attack’.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
