Will this guy ever get outta the courtroom and into the recording studio? Damn, c'mon Mike... let's hear some new shit! Read this... I do love the writers use of sarcasm and continuous puns

Jacko's Revolving Courtroom Door
Wed Oct 8,10:45 AM ET

By Sarah Hall

It's never just black or white with Michael Jackson.
The King of Pop is in and out of court so often, there's talk of building a special courthouse on the grounds of his Neverland Ranch, just for him.


Okay, we made that last bit up. But the Gloved One has certainly faced a staggering number of legal battles, due in large part to his eccentric spending habits and bizarre lifestyle.


Most recently, Jackson settled a suit with a design firm that was suing him for breach of contract, it was learned this week.


Cancilier Studio was commissioned to help design Jackson's Neverland Estates--a personal theme park in Las Vegas. The plaintiffs claimed that Jackson asked them to "fast track" the project, and had them pick up materials and labor costs on their own dime. They alleged that Jackson never intended to pay them for their work.


The studio was seeking about $80,000, plus unspecified damages. The terms of the settlement, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on September 24, were confidential.


Though Jackson reportedly suffers from anxiety attacks when faced with lawsuits, he hasn't yet found a way to avoid them.


Last March, Jackson was ordered to pay $5.3 million to a promoter he burned after flaking on two much-touted millennium gigs.


Then in May, Jacko settled a case with Sotheby's auction house, which had sued the eyelinered icon over his unpaid $1.4 million bill for two 19th-century paintings he purchased last year.


After Jackson decided the paintings would not mesh well with his collection, he elected not to pay up. Sotheby's, not liking that decision, took him to court; the two parties eventually chose to come to a confidential agreement.


In June, Jackson settled a suit with a former financial advisor who claimed that Jackson was scraping the bottom of his bank account.


South Korean-based Myung-Ho Lee of Union Finance and Investment Corp. said the Baron of Breakdancing owed $12 million in unpaid fees and expenses. Jackson first countersued the advisor, accusing Lee of cheating him out of money, then asked a judge to throw the whole thing out.


But when it looked the case would proceed, threatening to make Jacko's largesse--or lack thereof--a matter of public record, the singer moonwalked his way to the bank to engineer a settlement with Lee.


What's next for the Sovereign of Neverland, the dangler of babies, the spawn of modern surgical advances?


Who knows, but stay tuned--it's sure to be a Thriller.

a lot of this stuff is probably his fault or his management's fault.



on the other hand, a lot of it is probably companies he's hired to work for him thinking they've hit the lottery and going after him for the most frivolous things, just to catch a little bit of that cash he's always hemmoraging.

AaronMaximus said:

I concur.

Why is this news? It's not even all completely accurate. If you have money, people sue you. End of.
[This message was edited Wed Oct 8 22:31:59 PDT 2003 by Ellie]

Over a 1000 lawsuits and counting.Good job he hardly loses!

Marrk said:

Hardly loses? You call settling out of court "winning"? I thought "winning" was when you don't have to pay the suing bastards any money, AND they have to publicly apologize for besmirching your name.

But that's just me.

Hey! I just "won" at the gas station! They wanted me to pay what I owed them, and instead, I settled the dispute with my check card!

edit: damn I gotta learn to hit the PREVIEW button.
[This message was edited Thu Oct 9 10:58:20 PDT 2003 by otan]

Lawyer fees and court records being made public (especially financial records) aren't worth it. The only case MJ actually lost was the one against Marcel Avram, and he was ordered to pay what he originally offered to settle for anyway. He knew with that one that he was in the wrong, but Avram was asking for 4-5 times as much as he was actually owed, so he defended himself and paid the $5m opposed to $20m+ it was filed for.

Okay, I'm just quoting the posted article, which could be largely false, but...



I see the word "settled" or "settlement" in there three times, and an additional "pay up" once, and "agreement" once. That's five. And the boy toy wasn't mentioned.

Now, where exactly are you seeing that he WON those?