A Joe Biden-appointed judge in D.C. has ordered the Kennedy Center to pay a jazz musician a $250,000 fee after the organization tried to sue him for cancelling his concert because he opposes President Donald Trump.
Musician Chuck Redd cancelled his Christmas Eve concert at the Kennedy Center despite having performed there for years because he opposed the addition of Trump’s name to the center. Redd said in a statement that he was cancelling due to the “defiant and illegal name change happening to the Kennedy Center,” according to Variety.
The Trump Kennedy Center, as it was then called, immediately threatened to sue the musician for one million dollars claiming that he was in breach of contract.
Redd’s lawyers claimed that the lawsuit was “political retribution” for the musician’s decision to pull out because he opposes Donald Trump. The Center claimed that Redd had a standing agreement for years to perform on Christmas Eve and his cancellation was itself an act of politics.
But in June, Biden-appointed Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier threw out the Center’s suit against Redd saying that the Trump administration failed to prove that Redd was under contract for the concert.
Now, after throwing out the lawsuit, Judge Bosier is also ordering the Trump administration to pay the musician $252,000 in legal fees and costs over the suit.
Redd’s attorney, Lisa J. Banks, celebrated the judgement.
“The Trump-controlled Kennedy Center tried to silence opposition to its illegal name change by filing a meritless lawsuit against jazz musician Chuck Redd,” Banks said. “The court rightly dismissed that breach of contract lawsuit, finding there was no contract and no damages, and was brought against Mr. Redd based on his protected opposition. Now the court has ordered the Kennedy Center to pay Mr. Redd’s legal fees, which is appropriate as no citizen should have to spend time and money fending off baseless and politically motivated lawsuits filed by the Trump Administration.”
Previous to Judge Bosier’s decision, Barack Obama-appointed Judge Christopher R. Cooper had ruled that the Trump administration had to remove Trump’s name from the signage for the Kennedy Center. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” he ruled.
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