How have civil courts ruled on the lawsuits by Wade Robson and James Safechuck against Michael Jackson’s companies?
Executive summary
Civil courts have moved these high-profile claims through a shifting procedural path: the Robson and Safechuck suits were initially dismissed as time-barred, then dismissed again on duty-of-care grounds in the lower court, and finally were revived by a California Court of Appeal panel in August 2023, which sent the cases back toward trial without deciding the underlying abuse allegations [1] [2] [3].
1. Origins and early dismissals: statute-of-limitations rulings
Both Wade Robson and James Safechuck filed civil suits against MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures—companies owned by Michael Jackson—after years of public and private dispute over the allegations; those initial complaints were dismissed in 2017 because the courts concluded the claims were barred by California’s statute of limitations until the Legislature temporarily extended the filing window, a change that later reopened the procedural door to the suits [1] [4].
2. Lower-court rulings on corporate duty: “no duty” and dismissal
After the statutory barrier was removed, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge again dismissed the lawsuits, ruling that Jackson’s companies and their employees owed no legal duty to protect the plaintiffs from Jackson, a decision reflected in separate 2020 and 2021 rulings that threw the suits out on duty and control grounds [3] [1] [5].
3. The appeals court reversal: corporations can owe an affirmative duty
A three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal reversed those dismissals in August 2023, holding that a corporation that facilitated abuse by an employee is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect children merely because the corporation is solely owned by the perpetrator; the panel found that employees or directors who knew or suspected abuse could have taken protective steps and that those possibilities must be resolved at trial, not on dismissal [3] [6] [2].
4. What the appeals court did not decide: guilt, credibility, or damages
The appellate ruling restored the cases to the trial court on procedural and duty-of-care theories and explicitly did not adjudicate the truth of Robson’s and Safechuck’s abuse allegations—those factual disputes remain for a jury or future proceedings, meaning revival is not a finding of liability or validation of the accusations themselves [2] [6].
5. Competing rulings and appellate history: a fractured procedural path
The litigation has seen multiple reversals and divergent rulings: after the 2017 dismissals, further appeals produced mixed outcomes in federal and state courts—the record includes prior appellate rulings that favored the Jackson estate in separate proceedings and later decisions that permitted re-filing under the changed statutory landscape—illustrating a complex procedural history rather than a single, definitive judicial resolution of the underlying claims [7] [1] [4].
6. Parties’ reactions and implications for trial strategy
Plaintiffs’ counsel framed the appeals victory as correcting “incorrect rulings” and preserving victims’ access to court, while defense counsel for Jackson’s estate and companies stressed disappointment and emphasized that appellate revival is not a finding of liability; the appellate opinion’s focus on possible employee or director inaction frames the upcoming litigation around corporate culpability and institutional failures as much as the conduct of Michael Jackson himself [2] [6] [8].
7. Where the docket stands and what remains unresolved
As of the appellate reversal in August 2023, the suits were returned to the trial court to proceed toward jury adjudication of the revived claims against the corporate entities; public reporting in the provided sources does not supply a final trial verdict or a subsequent definitive resolution on damages or liability, so the ultimate civil outcome remains an open question in these records [3] [2] [9].