The Micheal Jackson Wrongful Death Suit.

Yesterday (2/4/13) a Court in Los Angeles began hearing a civil action brought by Katherine Jackson against concert promoters AEG over the 2009 death of her son the late Micheal Jackson. The USD40 million claim argues that by employing Doctor Conrad Murray who has since been convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of Micheal Jackson AEG are responsible for Micheal Jackson''s death.

The main problem that Katherine Jackson has in bringing this case (and the Court has in hearing it) is that there is no evidence (such as a contract of employment) that AEG ever employed Dr Murray. Instead Ms Jackson claims to have is a long list of emails between Micheal Jackson, Conrad Murray and various AEG executives. These emails will no doubt be highly salacious and full of details that could be confused as references to Rihanna, Chris Brown, Rihanna's tour promoters Live Nation, myself or possibly even my doctor. Ms Jackson also claims to have a contract of employment between Micheal Jackson and Dr Murray that was draw up by AEG lawyers and evidence that AEG was paying Dr Murray's salary. That last point is particularly irrelevant because it is standard practise in the entertainment industry that an artist will be given an advance by a record company or tour promoter that they can spend how they wish. However it will be the record company or in this case tour promoter who ultimately signs the cheques. This is something that is quite clearly covered by the contract between Micheal Jackson and AEG.

By allowing this argument to even be presented to a jury the Judge - Yvette Palazuleos - is opening the door for a precedent to be set that will have wide reaching implications all forms of contract law (including things like marriage) in the state of California. For example if the contract drawn up by AEG lawyers between Mr Jackson and Dr Murray is held to be a contract between AEG themselves and Dr Murray does that then mean that if I instruct my lawyer to draw up say a tenancy agreement for a friend of mine as a favour does that make me liable for any breaches of that tenancy agreement by either party? This will have particularly wide-ranging implications within the California entertainment industry where standard practise for say a record company to instruct their lawyers to help one of their artists draw up a contract with a tour promoter or (using the Rihanna example) a retail clothing company. Regardless of the outcome of this argument the mere fact it is going on is going to cause lots of people in California lots of headaches.

If by some miracle Ms Jackson manages to leap the giant legal hurdle of the absence of a contract of employment and has the contract between Mr Jackson and Dr Murray ruled a de facto contract between AEG and Dr Murray the next problem she faces is that Mr Jackson employed Dr Murray in 2005. The relationship between Mr Jackson and AEG only began in around 2008 and the contract between Mr Jackson and Dr Murray drawn up by AEG lawyers wasn't signed until 2009 - just days before Mr Jackson's death. So rather than showing AEG to be recklessly employing Dr Murray the contract drawn up by their lawyers actually seems to show AEG exceeding their duty of care to Micheal Jackson (an adult man) by trying to regulate his relationship with a doctor known for questionable practise.

The feeds into the wider discussion about the efforts to contain the threat presented by Micheal Jackson to himself and others.While Mr Jackson may still have some highly deluded fans the fact that he was a prolific and dangerous paedophile is not in dispute. Prior to his death almost everybody working in the media and entertainment industry had either heard credible stories from children (predominately boys aged under 10) Mr Jackson had sexually abused or seen photographs or video of Mr Jackson either behaving highly inappropriately with or out and out sexually abusing young children. However as with the Jimmy Savile case in the UK Mr Jackson's power and wealth prevented these stories being made public. Since his death and the end of his protection from defamation many of those children (now adults) have started to publicly tell their stories. Laws preventing the distribution of child pornography still prevent many of the photographs and videos being seen publicly.

For reasons that are yet to be explained the prosecutors at either his 1993 or 2005 trials for child sex abuse failed to enter any of these witness statements, photographs or videos into evidence and Mr Jackson was wrongfully acquitted on both occasions. However the 2005 trial was the final straw and from then on anybody who had any dealings with Mr Jackson did everything in their power to make sure he had no contact with any more children including unsupervised contact with his own children. This was the real reason behind Mr Jackson's 2006 financial problems and the forced closure of his Neverland Ranch. This is also the reason why AEG simply would not allow Mr Jackson direct access to any money he made through his business dealings with them.

This act of a community pulling together in order to protect itself from a threat after the Courts and law enforcement agencies failed to do so is highly relevant to the Rihanna/Chris Brown case. After all the argument the US is trying to present is that there is no need for the Courts to take action against Brown because the community will regulate the threat he poses. Again this is going to be a very short argument because the test is quite simple. If Chris Brown is in a relationship with Rihanna or arguably any other woman the threat he presents is not being successfully regulated. Also being democratic society the US has decided that the wider community shall be protected from dangerous individuals such Mr Jackson or Mr Brown through laws passed by elected politicians and enforced by independent Courts. As such US citizens are forced by law to pay taxes in order to pay for both those politicians and Courts. Therefore it is not the communities responsibility to individually regulate the threat presented by Chris Brown. It is the responsibility of the Court that will hear his case on Friday (5/4/13). We will wait to see what happens.

Although it has absolutely no legal basis the community containment of Mr Jackson does raise some interesting moral questions about the actions of Dr Murray. After all it is clear that Mr Jackson only got heavily into drugs once he was prevented from sexually abusing children. As it is also clear that Mr Jackson was wilfully requesting and taking the drugs Dr Murray provided the question is; were Dr Murray's actions wrong because it could be argued he was simply helping Mr Jackson permanently eliminate the threat Mr Jackson posed to society? This has a relevance to the wider debate about the death penalty that is never far away in US politics. That's because while I firmly believe that the justice system should be wholly focused on rehabilitation rather than vengeance I appreciate that there are those - primarily sex offenders - who simply cannot be rehabilitated. Therefore as a society is better that we try and contain the threat presented by those individuals by keeping them locked up in prisons where they can still harm others or do we simply eliminate that threat by killing them.

Finally any discussion about Micheal Jackson, his paedophilic behaviour and the attempts to regulate that paedophilic behaviour prompts a discussion about what caused him to become a paedophile in the first place. From a psychological perspective even this isn't that interesting because it's well known that along with his brothers as a child Micheal Jackson was himself horrifically physically and psychologically abused by his father Joe Jackson assisted by his mother Katherine Jackson. This abuse clearly did severe damage to Micheal Jackson which manifested itself as paedophilia possibly in an attempt to regain a lost youth.

So if Katherine Jackson believes that AEG has vicarious liability for the actions of Dr Murray then surely she also believes she has vicarious liability for the actions of her son Micheal. As such rather then seeing Katherine Jackson trying to gain USD40million from AEG it would be much more interesting to see a Court case in which Katherine Jackson is tried for the abuse suffered by those sexually abused by Micheal Jackson.

15:15 on 3/4/13.