Legal representatives for jazz artist Chuck Redd announced that a Washington D.C. Superior Court judge has thrown out a contract violation lawsuit brought by the Kennedy Center after Redd pulled out of a Christmas Eve show to protest President Donald Trump’s control over the cultural institution.
The case was dismissed on Friday under the District’s Anti-SLAPP statutes, which protect against frivolous legal actions aimed at suppressing public criticism on issues of community concern.
Redd, who plays drums and vibraphone and has performed alongside notable musicians including Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Brown, had been hosting annual holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center beginning in 2006. He withdrew from last year’s show after Trump’s appointed board members at the Kennedy Center decided to incorporate the president’s name into the facility.
“The Center sued Mr. Redd because he publicly and rightly objected to adding Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center, a living memorial to former President John F. Kennedy,” Lisa J. Banks, one of Redd’s lawyers, said in a statement. “The lawsuit against Mr. Redd was political retribution, pure and simple, by the Trump Kennedy Center, and the Court correctly saw it as such in dismissing the case with prejudice.”
In an email to The Associated Press on Saturday morning, Redd expressed that he is “very pleased with the judge’s ruling.”
The dismissal request, submitted in March, contended that Redd had no contractual duty to perform. The filing referenced an agreement from the Kennedy Center that the performer had never actually executed with his signature.
Kennedy Center officials have not yet provided a response to inquiries about the lawsuit’s dismissal.
