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LOS ANGELES >> A judge granted a motion Tuesday to dismiss concert promoter AEG Live from a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Michael Jackson’s father.
City News Service said Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos agreed with AEG attorneys who said Joe Jackson should have joined a separate suit filed by his wife, Katherine. The judge said the law does not favor multiple suits by individual heirs.
She said that to allow Joe Jackson’s suit against AEG Live to go forward would “allow the heirs of a decedent to file as many suits as there are heirs.”
“Allowing Joseph Jackson to continue with his subsequent suit against AEG Live, alleging the same wrongful death claims as the related case, would contravene the purpose of the one-action rule,” she said.
AEG also argued that Joe Jackson is not a legitimate heir to his son’s fortune. The father was not mentioned in the King of Pop’s will.
“At the time Michael Jackson died, (his father) was estranged from his son, who repeatedly and publicly accused him of physical and other abuse,” the AEG Live court papers said.
The decision leaves Dr. Conrad Murray and Applied Pharmacy Services of Las Vegas as the only defendants in Joe Jackson’s suit. Murray is in jail after having been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson’s death. He says he is broke.
Katherine Jackson alleges in her suit that AEG Live is responsible for medical decisions made by Murray.
AEG Live attorney Marvin Putnam called the ruling a major victory for the entertainment giant. Joe Jackson’s lawyer Maureen Jaroscak called it a temporary setback and suggested that the 83-year-old Jackson might now try to become a party to his wife’s lawsuit.
Michael Jackson died in June 2009 from an overdose of the anesthetic propofol, which Murray was administering to him as a sleep medication.
