Judge orders Kennedy Center to pay musician Chuck Redd $252,000 in fees

A District of Columbia judge has ordered the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to pay more than $252,000 in attorneys’ fees to jazz musician Chuck Redd after his lawyers successfully argued that the center’s breach-of-contract lawsuit targeted his protected speech over the venue’s attempted name change.

Superior Court Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ruled Monday that the Kennedy Center must pay Mr. Redd $252,479.70 within 45 days to cover legal costs stemming from a lawsuit the center filed against him in March. Mr. Redd, a drummer and vibraphonist, had hosted the center’s Christmas Eve “Jazz Jams” concert for nearly two decades before pulling out of last December’s show days after the center’s Trump-aligned board added President Trump’s name to the venue’s facade.

Judge Jones Bosier dismissed the underlying lawsuit in June under the District’s anti-SLAPP statute, a law meant to deter litigation aimed at chilling public-interest speech, finding that Mr. Redd had never signed the proposed 2025 performance agreement and that the center failed to establish a valid breach-of-contract claim. In her ruling on the fee award, the judge sided largely with Mr. Redd’s legal team, awarding nearly all of the roughly $258,000 they had sought, while trimming a portion of litigation expenses and one attorney’s hourly rate under the court-preferred Laffey matrix rather than the federal Fitzpatrick matrix his lawyers had used. The judge also noted in the order that the Kennedy Center’s 21-page opposition brief missed the court’s filing deadline and exceeded its 15-page limit.

The center sued Mr. Redd for breach of contract after he went public with his reason for withdrawing, which the center’s court filings described as an effort “to abuse the public forum provided to him by the Center in order to make a political statement.” Richard Grenell, the center’s president at the time, had separately threatened Mr. Redd with a $1 million lawsuit over what he called a “political stunt.”

Lisa Banks, one of Mr. Redd’s attorneys, said in a statement that no citizen should have to fend off “baseless and politically motivated lawsuits filed by the Trump Administration.”

A Kennedy Center spokesperson said the center intends to appeal the fee award.

Mr. Trump’s name was removed from the Kennedy Center’s facade in June after a separate federal ruling found it had been added without the required congressional approval. The center’s board is expected to consider a new proposal Thursday for a two-year renovation closure, after a federal judge blocked its earlier closure decision.