Michael Jackson sexual abuse lawsuits revived by appeals court

New Delhi: A California appeals court on Friday revived lawsuits from two men who allege Michael Jackson sexually abused them for years when they were boys.

A three-judge panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal found that the lawsuits of Wade Robson and James Safechuck should not have been dismissed by a lower court, and that the men can validly claim that the two Jackson-owned corporations that were named as defendants in the cases had a responsibility to protect them.

It's the second time the lawsuits brought by Robson in 2013 and Safechuck the following year have been brought back after dismissal. The two men became more widely known for telling their stories in the 2019 HBO documentary " Leaving Neverland."

A judge who dismissed the suits in 2021 found that that the corporations, MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc., could not be expected to function like the Boy Scouts or a church where a child in their care could expect their protection. Jackson, who died in 2009, was the sole owner and only shareholder in the companies.

The higher court judges disagreed, writing that "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."

They added that "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." (AP)