Jackson Family vs. AEG Live trial beings, what can you expect?WRITTEN BY: LMJ ADMIN ON APRIL 2, 2013 NO COMMENT
Four years after Michael Jackson’s death, jury selection began on Tuesday (April 2) in the wrongful death suit
filed by Michael’s family against concert promoter AEG Live.
While the Jacksons claim that the company behind the planned 50-date ‘This Is It’ show in London should be held responsible for his death on June 25, 2009, AEG is expected to argue that Michael Jackson was to blame for his passing at age 50.
Jackson family claims:*AEG Live is to blame for hiring Conrad Murray who killed Michael with a Propofol lethal dose
*Judge determined that lawyers for the estate provided enough evidence that AEG was negligent in hiring Murray
*AEG shouldhave known Murray used dangerous combinations of prescription drugs
*e-mail sent by AEG’s co-CEO 11 days before Michael died, “We want to remind (Murray) that it is AEG, not MJ, who is paying his salary,” read the e-mail. “We want to remind him what is expected of him.”
*financial compensation for what MJ could have earned the rest of his life
*AEG traded on Murray’s fear of losing his lucrative job and pressured him to do whatever it took to get Michael ready for the concerts.
In rejecting AEG Live’s earlier attempt to have the suit thrown out, the judge in the case said she agree with the Jackson lawyers that AEG Live didn’t do a sufficient enough background check on Murray, which would have revealed that he was deeply in debt.
“There is a triable issue of fact as to whether it was foreseeable that such a physician under strong financial pressure may compromise his Hippocratic Oath and do what was known by AEG Live’s executives to be an unfortunate practice in the entertainment industry for financial gain,” the judge wrote.
AEG Live’s defense:*It was Michael Jackson who hired Murray, not AEG.
*MJ paid Murray’s bills for nearly four years.
*Michael had a long history of erratic behavior.
*AEG is expected to paint a picture of chronic drug use.
*AEG lawyer Marvin Putnam: “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.”
*Murray only signed with AEG the night before Michael’s death, AEG executives never signed the contract.
Before jury selection began on Tuesday morning, the judge in the case was scheduled to hear arguments to allow TV cameras in the courtroom. Murray, who is serving a four year jail term, has said he might invoke his Fifth Amendment right to avoid answering questions in the wrongful death suit. But Putnam noted that in an interview with police two days after Michael’s death Murray said he was Jackson’s employee, not AEG’s, even though the promoter was expected to cut paychecks equaling $150,000 a month.
Putnam said he learned during the discovery process that Jackson was personally paying Murray during the last two months of his life, a claim that Jackson’s lawyers declined to comment on. He also said that the so-called “smoking gun”
email from Gongaware was no such thing because a doctor’s Hippocratic Oath would not allow him to do anything that might harm his patient.
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login