Family seeking payout for promoter's alleged hiring of Dr Conrad Murray
Doctor is serving four-year prison sentence for manslaughter
Company to deny liability, claiming he was responsible for his own deathMichael Jackson’s addiction to prescription drugs made him responsible for his own death, lawyers will argue in a wrongful death trial getting under way today in Los Angeles.
The late King of Pop’s three children and his mother are seeking a staggering £26.5billion in compensation from Jackson’s last concert promoter AEG Live.
The children – Prince Michael, Paris and Blanket – together with the singer’s mother Katherine Jackson want the record payout from the entertainment giant behind the star’s planned O2 Arena concerts for its alleged negligent hiring and supervision of Dr Conrad Murray.
Jackson’s personal doctor is serving a four-year prison sentence after being found guilty of manslaughter in 2011.
The civil trial, which is expected to last two to three months, was due to start with jury selection today.
According to a senior AEG lawyer, the company is likely to bring up Jackson’s drug shopping as well as his acquittal on child molestation charges as part of their case that the promoter had no liability in the tragedy.The ‘Thriller’ superstar died in June 2009, just two weeks before his ‘This Is It’ comeback concerts were to have debuted in London.
In a documentary to be screened on CNN on Friday, AEG lawyer Marvin Putnam insists: ‘I don't know how you can't look to Mr Jackson's responsibility there. He was a grown man.
‘Mr Jackson is a person who was known to doctor shop. He was known to be someone who would tell one doctor one thing and another doctor something else.’He said the 2005 child molestation trial is relevant because it ‘resulted in an incredible increase in his drug intake.’
‘We're talking about Michael Jackson,’ adds Mr Putnam. ‘This is a man who would show up in pyjamas. This is a man who would stop traffic and get out and dance on top of his car. This is a man who would go to public events with a monkey named Bubbles. This is a man who said he slept in an oxygen chamber.’
Court papers obtained last month by TMZ – the US website that first reported Jackson’s death – said the singer’s heirs want £6.6 billion for all the future earnings they claim he would have earned if he’d lived. The additional billions are being claimed in damages.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos ruled in February that the Jackson family lawyers had shown enough evidence to warrant a trial.
The case could throw new light on the star’s death as Murray, who did not give evidence in his own case, is on the witness list.
Prince Michael, 16, is expected to testify concerning a conversation he allegedly had with his father about the concert promoter. Paris, 14, is also expected to give evidence about her father’s death.
The two older children, Blanket, 10, and their grandmother Katherine, 82, contend it was pressure from AEG Live that led to the star’s death from an overdose of surgical anaesthetic at the age of 50.
A judge ruled last month that there was sufficient evidence to warrant a jury trial.
‘The truth about what happened to Michael, which AEG has tried to keep hidden from the public since the day Michael died, is finally emerging. We look forward to the trial where the rest of the story will come to light,’ Jackson lawyer Kevin Boyle said after the decision.
At Murray’s trial it emerged that the doctor was paid £100,000-a-month to help Jackson get enough rest to perform at the O2.
However, AEG will claim that Murray was hired by Jackson and not by the promoter.
The judge was due to hear arguments for television cameras to be allowed in the Los Angeles courtroom just before jury selection started today.
