The Gwyneth Paltrow Trial Hinges on Ski Slope Etiquette
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When you learn to ski, one of the first things you are taught—after learning how to put on your ski boots—is about safety on a slope. Namely, that the person down the mountain always has the right-of-way, and you, as the uphill skier, are responsible for those below you.
The National Ski Areas Association, which represents over 300 ski resorts in the U.S., has a simple code of conduct. The first two points read:
Always stay in control. You must be able to stop or avoid people or objects.
People ahead or downhill of you have the right-of-way. You must avoid them.
The fourth point states, "Look uphill and avoid others before starting downhill or entering a trail." Even if you don't specifically know the code of conduct, all skiers (and snowboarders) around the world are aware of this ski mountain etiquette. When I learned to ski at age 3, my dad taught me this: Always pay attention to where you're going, and who's in front of you.
When I was a ski instructor, I always reminded my students that whatever direction their shoulders pointed, that's the way they're going. One of the first lessons I would do with my beginners was learning how to stop if they felt they were going out of control—we'd make snowplow turns, nice and slow, for run after run on the bunny hill. Because, again: those uphill are responsible for those downhill. It's common knowledge.
So when it comes to the trial of the century—i.e. the lawsuit retired optometrist Terry Sanderson, 76, is bringing against Oscar winner and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow, 50, over a collision at Deer Valley Resort in February 2016—this etiquette is key in understanding culpability. Who was uphill, and therefore, who was guilty?
Sanderson alleges that Paltrow hit him, and Paltrow is countersuing (for $1, and legal fees) that it was in fact he who hit her. The trial will seek to prove who was downhill at the time of collision, and consequently, who was not at fault.
"My daughter was down the hill. My son was to my left. I was skiing. My eyes were not fixated only on my son, when Mr. Sanderson skied directly into my back," Paltrow testified. Meanwhile, Sanderson said he was skiing with "nothing in front of me," adding, "I got hit in my back so hard. I felt like it was perfectly centered and the fists and the poles were right there at the bottom of my shoulder blades. A serious, serious smack."
In an animated reconstruction of the collision, presented by Paltrow's lawyers to illustrate the testimony of Deer Valley ski instructor Eric Christiansen, Paltrow is downhill from Sanderson:
"I witnessed him [Sanderson] coming much faster than anybody else on the slope coming down on the hill," Christiansen said when he testified.
Also of note in the animated reconstruction is how wide Sanderson's turn seems to be—cutting across the entire slope, taking huge, wide turns, which indicates a beginner-level skier not confident in his changing direction. If a skier is taking the entire slope to turn, this is another frowned-upon etiquette on the slopes.
And so we return to the skier code of conduct, and simple mountain etiquette: Was Sanderson in control? Was he uphill? That's for a jury to decide.
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