On Friday, a California appeals court reinstated the claims of two men that Michael Jackson had repeatedly molested them as youths.
Wade Robson and James Safechuck’s legal claims that the two Jackson-owned corporations named as defendants in the cases had a duty to protect them shouldn’t have been dismissed by a lower court, according to a three-judge panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal. The appeals court was able to reinstate them thanks to a new California statute that temporarily enlarged the scope of sexual assault prosecutions.
This is the second time the dismissed lawsuits—filed by Robson in 2013 and Safechuck the following year—have been resurrected. The two men gained additional notoriety after sharing their tales in the 2019 HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland.”
MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc. could not be expected to operate like the Boy Scouts or a church in which a child in their care may anticipate their protection, according to a judge who dismissed the lawsuits in 2021. Jackson was the sole stakeholder and owner of the businesses until his death in 2009.
The judges on the higher court disagreed, noting that “a corporation that enables the sexual assault of children by one of its employees is not exempted from an affirmative duty to safeguard those children simply because it is owned entirely by the perpetrator of the abuse.”
It would be illogical to establish no duty since the corporate defendant only had one shareholder, they said. We therefore set aside the judgments rendered in favor of the businesses.
According to Jonathan Steinsapir, the Jackson estate is “disappointed.”
Steinsapir wrote in an email to The Associated Press, “Two distinguished trial judges frequently dismissed these cases on various occasions over the last decade since the law required it.” We continue to be adamant that Michael is innocent of these accusations, which run counter to all reliable evidence and third-party confirmation and were only brought up for the first time years after Michael’s passing by men who were just interested in making money.
According to Vince Finaldi, an attorney for Robson and Safechuck, they were “pleased but not surprised” that the court overturned the previous judge’s “incorrect rulings in these cases, which were contrary to California law and would have set an unsafe precedent that endangered children across the state and country.” We enthusiastically anticipate a merits-based trial.
It does not make sense that staff would be legally obligated to stop the behavior of their boss, Steinsapir had argued for the defense in July.
Low-level staff would have to face their boss and brand them a pedophile, according to Steinsapir.
Holly Boyer, another attorney for Robson and Safechuck, argued in opposition that the defendants’ staff had “left the boys alone in this lion’s den.” The obligation to safeguard and warn is explicit.
According to Steinsapir, evidence in the untried instances demonstrated that the parents had no expectation that Jackson’s staff would serve as monitors.
“They were not looking to Michael Jackson’s companies for protection from Michael Jackson,” the attorney stated.
However, Associate Justice John Shepard Wiley Jr., one of the panelists, stated in a concurring opinion published with Friday’s ruling that “to consider Jackson’s wholly-owned instruments to be distinct from Jackson himself is to be entranced by abstractions. This situation is not an alter ego. This is a case of same ego.
The validity of the accusations was not decided by the judges. There will be a jury trial in Los Angeles soon over it.
With Michael’s continued vindication, “we trust that the facts will ultimately prevail,” Steinsapir said on Friday.
When Jackson was 5 years old, Robson, a choreographer now in his 40s, first met him. He later made three Michael Jackson music videos appearances.
Jackson allegedly raped him during a seven-year period, according to his lawsuit.
When Safechuck, now 45, met Jackson while filming a Pepsi commercial, he was 9 years old, according to what he said in his suit. Before beginning to abuse him sexually, Jackson, according to him, lavished him with gifts and frequent phone calls.
The Associated Press normally does not identify anyone who claim to have been sexually abused. However, Robson and Safechuck have spoken out and given their consent for the publication of their names.
The men’s claims were already on the mend after Young dismissed them in 2017 due to the statute of limitations. 2015 saw the dismissal of Jackson’s personal estate, or the assets he left behind, as a defendant.