Taylor Swift won a major case on Monday, but the dollar amount of the damages doesn’t make it seem like one.
The 10-time Grammy Award winner won $1 in damages from radio host David Mueller for her countersuit filed against Mueller. The reason for the case stemmed from a June 2013 meet-and-greet when Swift accused Mueller of groping her during a photo op.
The $1 in damages listed by Swift in the case was symbolic as she wanted to make it clear in her lawsuit that she wasn’t going after Mueller for money, but instead to send a message.
“I acknowledge the privilege that I benefit from in life, in society and in my ability to shoulder the enormous cost of defending myself in a trial like this,” Swift said the statement that was acquired by CNN. “My hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard. Therefore, I will be making donations in the near future to multiple organizations that help sexual assault victims defend themselves.”
The reason why the lawsuit was considered a countersuit and involved Andrea as well as Taylor was because of a lawsuit from 2015. Two years ago after Mueller was fired from his job as a DJ at KYGO radio in Denver, he sued Swift and her mother for “interfering with his $150,000/year contract.” Mueller alleged that by “interfering,” the Swifts got him fired.
A couple days ago on Friday, Swift was dismissed as a defendant in Mueller’s original suit after a judge ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that Swift “acted improperly.”
“It takes people like Taylor, wonderful people like Taylor, who we all know, to stand up and draw these lines,” Baldridge told reporters. “As I said in the closing [argument], that dollar, that single dollar, is of immeasurable value in this ever going fight to figure out where the lines are, what’s right and what’s wrong.”
