How Gwyneth Paltrow ruled concussions

The case against her was quite weak. Did her defense have to scoff at the very idea of ​​invisible injuries?

In March, on day 7 of Gwyneth Paltrow's ski trial, after the court show had already marked everything from a 'meme machine' to 'the whitest trial ever', retired optometrist Terry Sanderson was sitting in the witness box, already a bit deflated. By then, he probably knew his suing Paltrow for ski collision damage that he said was his fault was a pretty bad idea. Sanderson claimed the injuries he suffered in the 2016 skiing accident (including, among other things, a concussion) changed his life, turning him into "a different person" and "a crippled vet". Paltrow's lawyer, Stephen Owens, languid and unfazed, stood before him, presenting Facebook posts - numerous Facebook posts, some taken months after the collision - as evidence of robust health.

"This is a picture of you and your girlfriend smiling, isn't it?"

"Smile, camera, yeah," Sanderson replied.

And then the deluge:

Was it, Owens asked, Sanderson hiking with his girlfriend? Was he the one taking a picture of a moose? Was it him, looking happy? Was he still hiking and smiling? With a fresh backpack containing water? Scuba diving? At a car show in Germany? A shooting range? BMX Bike Show? Was it Sanderson on a boat trip along the canals in the Netherlands? Did he do bus tours? Where to go to Morocco? Twice? Did he go to this museum in Marrakech? Was it him at a rock concert? In a ski resort? Going out with drinking buddies? At an exhibition? Feel happy? Looking fit and happy? Was it him "doing yoga, or mamba, or what?"

"It's Zumba," Sanderson corrected. And yes.

As far as controversies go, the lawsuit was as Diamond Life as it gets. For about a week it lived in the media as a low-stakes, high-stakes party all of our horrible decade. In the midst of a news cycle of war and school shootings, the recession and an indicted ex-president, it was an almost delicious diversion to have this little legal thriller, this simple question of who hit who on a ski slope so luxurious as she might as well be covered in cashmere.< /p>

Even though the lawsuit was insignificant to viewers, it seemed like a real inconvenience to Paltrow, who said she was hurt by Sanderson and claimed to have “lost half a day of skiing” as a result of the accident. Sanderson strikes me as an opportunist with an appetite for attention, or at the very least a schlemiel, perhaps a little conceited The retired optometrist, the jury said, crashed into Paltrow, making him the offender. Unsurprisingly, she won the case.

But what frustrated me about this lawsuit, especially the questioning above, is that Sanderson's claim that his life was changed by the concussion was over and repeatedly disputed or dismissed. Part of the reason for this assertion seemed to stem from the fact that, well, he seemed to still have life. Owens strongly implied that a man truly affected by a mild traumatic brain injury like a concussion couldn't or wouldn't hike or travel or look on Facebook like he was living the dream. Or maybe the frame of reasoning was more that someone living with the disease — in Sanderson's case an invisible disease — shouldn't do these things. He should be in bed, in the land of the sick, without a visa, without a passport.

The invisible disease category — which means exactly what it sounds like: a disease or a disability not immediately apparent - is growing strongly in America. Through the wonders of medicine, we have become adept at turning life-threatening illnesses, such as diabetes, heart disease, or certain forms of cancer, into chronic illnesses that can often be lived with. At the same time, diagnoses of hidden illnesses like Crohn's disease or fibromyalgia are becoming more common - as is the long Covid, which alone could have affected up to 23 million Americans.

>The sociologist Arthur W. Frank called this cohort 'societal remission...