$85 Million. That is the amount that Brian Panish, the attorney for the Jackson clan, urged jurors to award each of Michael Jackson’s three children in the case against AEG Live. Plus another $35 million to Jackson’s 83-year-old mother for “non-economic” damages, e.g. loss of love and comfort. On top of this $290 Million “urging” were the “economic” damages. And while an exact figure was not proffered by Panish, the family’s claim is $1.6 billion–simply mind-boggling beyond any rational belief.
More laughable perhaps was Panish’s comments that “We’re not looking for sympathy, we’re looking for justice.” Really? What price, pray tell, would that be? Five hundred million? Seven hundred and fifty million? The combined GNP of several emerging nations?
Central to the determination of the case is the critical question of who hired Dr. Conrad Murray. Was it AEG Live or was it MJ himself? (Dr. Conrad, a cardiologist, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson in 2011 and sentenced to a four-year prison term.) MJ’s mom says AEG Live negligently hired an inappropriate and incompetent doctor, and missed a series of red flags about his failing health in the run-up to his death. AEG Live says it didn’t contract with Dr. Murray, and that a promised $150,000 a month for his medical services were to have come from an advance it was making to MJ, meaning, effectively, that Michael Jackson hired his own physician.
One has to ask a basic question here: How long would any physician in MJ’s employ (regardless of who actually hired him) have lasted had that doctor not provided MJ with the powerful and inappropriate drugs he insisted on receiving to aid his insomnia? MJ actually referred to the anesthetic narcotic Propofol, which he took with frightening frequency, as “milk.” This is by no means in defense of Dr. Conrad; clearly the Hippocratic Oath was misplaced, lost, or forgotten in his care of MJ. However, in arguing damages, why does MJ’s family completely ignore the role of MJ himself?
Despite the well-known and wide variety of personal problems that MJ had at the time of his death, the fact remains that he was a 50-year-old man and, as an adult was, like the rest of us, ultimately responsible for his own health when he died, as AEG Live attorney Marvin Putman has argued to the jury. While Dr. Conrad’s sad or bad role in this seemingly never-ending legal trauma drama is reprehensible–while financially convenient for MJ’s heirs–it’s difficult to dismiss the role that MJ’s complete abdication of personal responsibility played in his own demise, as Panish would like the jury to do in deciding the damages in this case.
Sadly, the Jackson children lost their father, and MJ’s parents, their son. This is clear. That the world lost a talented performer with MJ’s death also goes without saying. And AEG Live probably did certain things in handling its talent that are very regrettable at best. But at a certain point, one cannot really completely ignore MJ’s own hand and his long-standing demons in this dark story. Both personal responsibility and accountability have to be taken into account during the damages phase of this trial. Otherwise, the numbers are simply pulled out of a magician’s hat and based purely on emotions and the quality of counsel. This then has the collateral effect of tipping the scales of justice to the point where justice has virtually no relevance and perhaps worse, no meaning at all.
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