The organization tried to sue Chuck Redd for backing out of an annual Christmas eve gig, but a judge dismissed the suit in June
The Kennedy Center will have to pay more than $250,000 to cover the legal fees of a jazz musician it tried, and failed, to sue for canceling a concert in protest of President Donald Trump’s takeover of the cultural institution.
On Monday, Washington D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier granted musician Chuck Redd’s motion requesting that the Kennedy Center cover his costs related to the failed lawsuit. While the Kennedy Center’s lawyers argued the sum Redd was seeking was “out of all proportion to the issue at stake,” Jones Bosier found the amount of $252,479.70 appropriate for the amount of time Redd’s lawyers put into the case.
In a statement, Redd’s lawyer, Lisa J. Banks, celebrated the ruling: “The Trump-controlled Kennedy Center tried to silence opposition to its illegal name change by filing a meritless lawsuit against jazz musician Chuck Redd. 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.” (A lawyer for the Kennedy Center did not immediately return a request for comment.)
Redd was one of several musicians to cancel Kennedy Center gigs in late 2025 after the institution’s board — which the president stacked with cronies after returning to office — voted to add Trump’s name to the venue. In response, Redd nixed his annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam, which he’s done at the Kennedy Center every year since 2006.
Then-Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell threatened to sue Redd for $1 million, and a lawsuit was formally brought in a breach of contract suit in March. Redd moved to dismiss the case and, in June, Jones Bosier granted his motion.
The judge rejected the breach-of-contract claim, because Redd hadn’t yet actually signed a contract to play the 2025 Christmas Eve Jazz Jam. And she cited Washington D.C.’s Anti-SLAPP laws, which protect defendants against meritless lawsuits and “political retribution.”
The Kennedy Center’s lawsuit against Redd was notably tossed just a few days after a federal judge ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center.
