Jacko's Legal Sickout
Deposition syndrome.
That appears to be what Michael Jackson is suffering from, because this time it was--reportedly--general malaise rather that an unexpected spider attack that was the excuse for his latest legal no-show.
According to his lawyer, Jacko gets particularly wacko when he's faced with lawsuits, so it should be no surprise that yesterday he was briefly hospitalized in Indianapolis on a day when he was scheduled to give a deposition in a copyright lawsuit against him.
"He can become very concerned and nervous at depositions. He doesn't like lawsuits, and it makes him ill to cope with litigation that people seem to heap on him," Brian Oxman, an attorney for the Jackson family told the Associated Press. Apparently, according to Oxman, the pop oddity has, "in occasions in the past, not eaten when he should."
Oxman said Jackson "was not feeling well and was feeling weak," but didn't know what hospital the 44-year-old entertainer had dropped in on. Jackson spokesman Stuart Backerman also didn't know where the notoriously court shy star went. But he did know that after a couple of hours Jackson was feeling okay enough to board a private jet to return to Los Angeles without ever testifying.
Last December, the trouble-plagued Jackson claimed it was a bite from a pesky arachnid that caused his tardiness and subsequent absence during testimony at a Santa Maria, California, court in a multimillion-dollar breach-of-contract suit over canceled millennium concerts. He lost that suit to the tune of $5.3 million.
This time, Jackson had gone to Indianapolis Tuesday to be deposed by attorney Norman Reed, who is representing Gordon Keith. Keith (aka William Adams) is the man from Gary, Indiana (where Jackson was born) who signed the Jackson 5 to his Steeltown Records label, way back in 1967 when Jackson was a mere lad. Keith is claiming in a federal lawsuit, filed in 1997, that the Jackson siblings got credit nearly 30 years later on the 1996 album Pre-History: The Lost Steeltown Recordings, for songs by another local group, Ripples & Waves. Keith and musician Elvy Woodard are accusing Michael and brothers Tito, Jackie, Jermaine and Marlon, along with Brunswick Record Company and Inverted Record Productions, of copyright infringement.
Robert Meyer, Jackson's attorney at the Chicago firm of Swanson Martin & Bell, has refused comment on the legal case.
Of course, Jackson's lawyers have an excuse for dissing the media--they've been plenty busy of late.
Earlier this week, Jackson's legal eagles confirmed that the singer had settled a suit brought against him by Sotheby's auction house for failing to fork over $1.4 million for two paintings he won at auction.
Meantime he's suing his old record company, Motown, now owned by Universal Music Group, over non-payment of royalties. Furthermore, the tax man has been nosing around Jackson's Neverland Ranch in a possible bid to revoke the singer's tax break on the property. A decision in that case was recently postponed until later this year.
Indeed Jackson's legal battles--some he wins, some he loses, some he settles, some simply fade away--are so numerous they may soon merit their own law library.
As for the Indianapolis case, the judge has ordered Jackson to be back in three weeks. Let's hope the lawsuit-itis clears up by then so he'll be disposed to be deposed.
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