Wade Robson and James Safechuck, the men who accused Michael Jackson of molesting them and were the focus of the documentary “Leaving Neverland,” will be able to proceed with their lawsuit against the singer’s businesses, a California appeals court ruled friday.
In a unanimous ruling Friday, a 3-judge California appeals court reversed decisions in 2020 and 2021 that dismissed Robson and Safechuck’s lawsuits.
Robson, 40, and Safechuck, 45, were the subjects of the documentary “Leaving Neverland,” which recounted their accusations that Jackson repeatedly molested them and tricked their families into trusting him. The men are are suing MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc., two companies wholly owned by Jackson at the time of his death in 2009.
They allege that the companies had a “duty of care,” and that employees of those companies acted as “co-conspirators, collaborators, facilitators and alter egos” during the period in which they say they were molested.
“Plaintiffs had every right to expect defendants to protect them from the entirely foreseeable danger of being left alone with Jackson,” the judges wrote in their decision.
The lawsuit will not go back to trial.
Jackson always denied any wrongdoing and was acquitted on child molestation charges in 2005.
“We remain fully confident that Michael is innocent of these allegations, which are contrary to all credible evidence and independent corroboration, and which were only first made years after Michael’s death by men motivated solely by money,” Jonathan Steinsapir, a lawyer for Jackson’s estate, said in a statement provided to the New York Times.
