The attorney representing the estate of Michael Jackson, Jonathan Steinsapir, reacted angrily to a potential ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in California, which indicated that it was inclined to reinstate previously rejected cases from two men who claim Jackson sexually assaulted them for years when they were boys.
Employees of businesses controlled by Michael Jackson were not required by law to keep youngsters safe from the pop icon, an attorney testified before an appeals court on Wednesday.
The Logic of the Appeals Court
Steinsapir claimed that the logic of the appeals court “would require low-level employees to confront their supervisor and call them paedophiles.”
Workers should be responsible for that, according to Holly Boyer, an attorney for Wade Robson and James Safechuck, the plaintiffs.
Boyer informed the three judges in the videoconference session that “we do require that employees of the entity take those steps because what we are talking about is the sexual abuse of children.”
What we’re dealing with here are kids who are 7 and 10 years old and who are completely unprepared to defend themselves against their guru, Michael Jackson.
The youngsters, according to Boyer, “were left alone in this lion’s den by the defendant’s employees. An affirmative duty to protect and to warn is correct.”
YeThe year009 saw Jackson’s demise, then in 2013 Robson file a lawsuit, and in 2014 Safechuck followed suit. The two men’s accounts in the 2019 HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland” helped them gain additional notoriety.
Unexpected
A judge who rejected the lawsuits in 2021 determined that Jackson’s two firms, MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc., for which he was the sole shareholder and owner, could not be expected to operate similarly to the Boy Scouts or a church where a child in their care could expect their protection.
The parents of the children in the cases, which have not yet gone to trial, did not anticipate Jackson’s workers serving as monitors, according to Steinsapir. He said a deposition from Robson’s mother revealed she was even completely unaware that the business existed.
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