Michael Jackson sexual abuse lawsuits revived by appeals court

Michael Jackson in 2005 (Aaron Lambert/The Santa Maria Times via AP, Pool)

A California appeals court has 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.

A new California law that temporarily broadened the scope of sexual abuse cases enabled the appeals court to restore them.

It is the second time the lawsuits – brought by Mr Robson in 2013 and Mr Safechuck the following year – have been brought back after dismissal.

Wade Robson in 2019 (Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

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 the corporations, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, could not be expected to function like the Boy Scouts or a church where a child in their care could expect their protection.

Mr 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”.

In July, Jackson estate attorney Jonathan Steinsapir said that the men’s allegations were unproven and untrue, but apart from that it does not make sense that employees would be legally required to stop the behaviour of their boss.

“It would require low-level employees to confront their supervisor and call them paedophiles,” Mr Steinsapir said.

Holly Boyer, a lawyer for Mr Robson and Mr Safechuck, countered that the boys “were left alone in this lion’s den by the defendant’s employees. An affirmative duty to protect and to warn is correct”.

James Safechuck in 2019 (Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

Mr Steinsapir said evidence that has been gathered in the cases, which have not reached trial, showed that the parents had no expectation of Mr Jackson’s employees to act as monitors.

He said a deposition from Mr Robson’s mother showed she did not even know the corporations existed when she first brought her seven-year-old son into the pop star’s presence.

“They were not looking to Michael Jackson’s companies for protection from Michael Jackson,” Mr Steinsapir said.

Mr Robson, now a 40-year-old choreographer, met Mr Jackson when he was five years old.

He went on to appear in three Jackson music videos.

His lawsuit alleged that Mr Jackson molested him over a seven-year period.

Mr Safechuck, now 45, said in his suit that he was nine when he met Mr Jackson while filming a Pepsi advert.

He alleged Mr Jackson called him often and lavished him with gifts before moving on to sexually abusing him.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were victims of sexual abuse.

But Mr Robson and Mr Safechuck have come forward and approved of the use of their identities.

The men’s lawsuits had already bounced back from a 2017 dismissal.

Mr Jackson’s personal estate – the assets he left after his death – was thrown out as a defendant in 2015.

The Jackson estate has adamantly and repeatedly denied that Mr Jackson abused either of the boys, and has emphasised that Mr Robson gave evidence at Mr Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial, where Mr Jackson was acquitted, that he had not been abused, and Mr Safechuck said the same to authorities.

The men’s cases were combined for oral argument and may also be tried together.