On Friday, California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal restored the lawsuits of the two men who accused Michael Jackson (the King of Pop) in 2013 of sexually abusing them as boys, AP News reported.
Per a Sis2Sis report, a new California law enabled appeals courts to reopen sexual assault lawsuits.
And, in 2019, now-celebrity choreographer Wade Robson and James Safechuck appeared in the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland with the allegations.
However, in 2021, a Los Angeles judge threw out their cases after they targeted Jackson’s entertainment corporations, arguing that the businesses — MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc. — had “no legal duty to protect” them from the singer like churches or Boy Scouts.
Jackson, who died in 2009, was both companies’ sole owner and shareholder.
But the 2nd District Court of Appeal recently disagreed, stating the two men’s lawsuits shouldn’t have been dismissed, granting them the right to hold two Jackson-owned corporations liable for failing to protect them from the singer.
“…a corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect those children merely because it is solely owned by the perpetrator of the abuse,” the higher court judges wrote.
They continued, “It would be perverse to find no duty based on the corporate defendant having only one shareholder. And so we reverse the judgments entered for the corporations.”
Jackson’s estate attorney, Jonathan Steinsapir, explained the revival of the cases was disappointing but remains confident that Jackson will be proven innocent.
“Two distinguished trial judges repeatedly dismissed these cases on numerous occasions over the last decade because the law required it,” Steinsapir told AP News. “We remain fully confident that Michael is innocent of these allegations, which are contrary to all credible evidence and independent corroboration, and which were only first made years after Michael’s death by men motivated solely by money.”
Steinsapir added that evidence (not presented at trial) proved that Robson and Safechuck’s parents didn’t look “to Michael Jackson’s companies for protection from Michael Jackson.”
He’s certain Jackson’s employees would’ve said something.
Robson and Safechuck’s attorney, Vince Finaldi, claimed he was grateful for the overturning but not surprised.
“…incorrect rulings in these cases, which were against California law and would have set a dangerous precedent that endangered children throughout state and country. We eagerly look forward to a trial on the merits,” Finaldi said.
Robson, 40, who appeared in three of Jackson’s music videos, claimed the “Beat It” singer molested him over a seven-year period.
Safechuck, 45, claimed he met Jackson at nine amid filming a Pepsi commercial. He said the musician would buy him gifts before sexually assaulting him.
