Gwyneth Paltrow ski crash trial: Who’s who

Gwyneth Paltrow is on trial over a 2016 ski accident in Utah involving a retired eye doctor who claims he suffered life-altering injuries.

Terry Sanderson, 76, says the Hollywood actress was distracted and caused the crash. He is seeking $300,000 (£245,000) in damages.

Ms Paltrow, 50, denies the charge, and has countersued for $1 plus compensation for attorneys’ fees.

The civil trial has turned on the testimony of its many characters.

Mr Sanderson first filed suit against Ms Paltrow in 2019, three years after their collision.

The retired optometrist, who says he has never been injured in more than 30 years of skiing, accuses the Oscar winner of being “reckless” and racing into him from behind on a beginner slope at the upscale Deer Valley Resort in western Utah.

Lawyers for Mr Sanderson, who was 69 at the time, allege Ms Paltrow was distracted by her children and landed on top of him, then left him “lying in the snow” without calling for help.

He claims the February 2016 crash left him unconscious, and that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and four broken ribs, as well as “loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress and disfigurement”.

He initially sought $3.1m over what he deems a “hit and run”, but that lawsuit was dismissed last May.

He is due to testify on Monday.

A movie star-cum-lifestyle influencer, Ms Paltrow rejects the plaintiff’s version of events and alleges he skied directly into her back.

Taking the stand on Friday, she testified that she was going downhill when she saw a pair of skis appear between her skis, heard “strange grunting” noises and felt a body pressing into her from behind.

Her first impression was that she was being sexually assaulted, she said, claiming they fell on the ground together, skis tangled up, and were “almost spooning”.

She told the court she had screamed a profanity at Mr Sanderson and did not ask him if he was OK because she felt “hurt and violated”. The crash left Ms Paltrow with a sore knee but no other injuries.

Her lawyers argue that Mr Sanderson brought his suit because she is a famous celebrity. They also blame the crash in part on several pre-existing medical conditions Mr Sanderson had, including hearing and vision loss from a stroke.

Two of Mr Sanderson’s daughters’ – Polly Sanderson-Grasham and Shae Herath – testified last week that their father changed significantly after the crash.

Ms Sanderson-Grasham said a man who was once “outgoing” and “gregarious” now gets “agitated” and “easily frustrated”.

She tearfully recounted one particular incident in which he was so upset she “almost expected drool to be coming out of his mouth” and knew something was “terribly wrong”.

But she also said her father had become “obsessed” with getting an apology from Ms Paltrow.

On Friday, Ms Paltrow’s lawyers questioned Ms Herath over emails exchanged with her father. In an email with the subject line “I’m famous… At what cost?”, Mr Sanderson said it was “cool” he had collided with a celebrity.

Ms Herath said Mr Sanderson had grown “very insecure” and “doesn’t trust his brain anymore”, adding that his grand-daughter did not want to be near him anymore because he was verbally abusive.

“This is not my dad. This is an alternate version of my dad,” she said.

The defence will call Ms Paltrow’s two children – Apple, 18, and Moses, 16 – as well as her husband Brad Falchuk to the stand this week.

The court has heard that Ms Paltrow organised the ski trip so that her kids could “blend” with Mr Falchuk, a TV producer and writer whom she married in 2018, and that she paid more than $9,000 for private ski lessons at the resort that day.

Mr Sanderson’s attorneys claim Moses, then nine, shouted “mommy, mommy, watch me” and his mother cocked her head to the side to look at him before the crash.

The plaintiff’s attorneys have called four doctors to the stand as expert witnesses bolstering their case.

Dr Alina Fong, a neuropsychologist, said Mr Sanderson had been “struggling with concussion symptoms for a year and a half” when she first saw him in May 2017.

The symptoms included “mood and personality changes, pain as well as headaches”, and they had “completely changed his life”, she claimed.

Dr Sam Goldstein, another neuropsychologist, said the struggles he had observed in Mr Sanderson were “the kind of stuff you better understand if you follow someone around for two weeks”.

Dr Wendell Gibby, a neuroradiologist who has reviewed Mr Sanderson’s medical record, described him as an intelligent man who had clearly lost “the ability to function at a high level”.

He added that “the abrupt change in [Mr Sanderson’s] functioning, his behaviour and his ability to interact with people was not something brought on by his pre-existing conditions”.

The collision was allegedly captured by a GoPro camera, but the footage has not been found or included as evidence in the trial.

Ms Paltrow’s legal team has called it “the most important piece of evidence” for the trial, indicating it will prove she was positioned downhill from Mr Sanderson and – per ski etiquette – had the right of way.

It is unclear why footage, if it exists, has gone missing – but there was at least one eye-witness to the crash.

Craig Ramone, 58, an acquaintance of Mr Sanderson’s, told the court Tuesday that they were skiing together when he heard a scream and saw Ms Paltrow “hit [Mr Sanderson] directly in the back”.

The crash sent his friend “face down, spread eagle, with Gwyneth on top of him”, but Ms Paltrow slid off him and bolted from the scene while he lay unresponsive, Mr Ramone testified.