Finally some excellent news to report. According to the case summary, on June 26th MJ Estate filed their summary judgment motion to dismiss Wade Robson’s case. When we went to the court to get the Robson documents, we also asked about any filings at Safechuck case and we found out that Judge Beckloff ruled on June 28th on the Estate’s demurrer and dismissed Safechuck’s case for good. Time to celebrate.

 

I want to briefly comment on the Judge’s ruling as well as what this means for Robson case. Judge's full ruling can be found here: https://www.scribd.com/document/353219745/Safechuck-Ruling-Demurrer-Dismissal

 

Keep in mind that for the purposes of demurrer, the judge is required by law to accept all the claims by Safechuck as true and only determines if there is a legal basis for the lawsuit. Also I want to emphasize that judge summarizing Safechuck allegations in his ruling doesn’t mean he believes them. In fact, the Judge even notes the requirement on page 9 of the ruling: "Accepting plaintiff's allegations as true (as the court must on demurrer except to the extent such factual allegations are contradicted by prior pleadings or judicially noticeable facts)...". Estate is also limited as they cannot present any new evidence at the demurrer phase. They can only argue against Safechuck’s claims using the law and the precedent cases.

Today – May 31st 2017– is the latest demurrer hearing for Safechuck. (3rd in civil case and 5th overall if you consider the probate claim). With Jane Doe unexpectedly dismissing her case, all eyes are now on Safechuck. (Previous post about demurrer can be found here)

Unlike Jane Doe, Safechuck is still fighting to survive demurrer. However each new argument by Safechuck and his lawyers get more desperate than the last. In this post I will focus on Estate’s reply in support of their demurrer and their brilliant job in highlighting the stupidity of Safechuck’s claims. If you take the time to read the document, you will realize that this case has reached a dead end and now Safechuck and his lawyers are desperate trying to twist the law by making absurd arguments to survive another day.

Link to the document: https://www.scribd.com/document/349975885/Mj-Estate-Safechuck-Demurrer-Reply

The death knell of the case – Safechuck admits MJ Companies had no control over Michael’s access to children.

The last time we reported on Safechuck case, judge had granted Estate’s second demurrer but have given Safechuck 15 days to amend his complaint. (Link) Not surprisingly Safechuck amended his complaint. At that time Jane Doe’s case was recently filed and had to go through a review by the judge. After that happened Jane Doe named MJ Companies as defendants and amended her complaint to copy the latest Safechuck complaint. So this prompted another set of demurrers for both of these cases. Estate have filed the demurrers on April 3rd and a hearing is set for May 31st.

Although this will be first demurrer for Jane Doe, it would be the 3rd civil case demurrer for Safechuck (and 5th demurrer overall for Safechuck if you add the probate claim). We have been reporting on those demurrers for quite a while so we won’t do another summary post as the main arguments stay the same. Rather we will simply point out the new and interesting developments. You can find the demurrer motion documents below:

MJ Estate First Demurrer to Jane Doe - https://www.scribd.com/document/345086855/MJ-Estate-First-Demurrer-to-Jane-Doe

MJ Estate Third Demurrer to Safechuck - https://www.scribd.com/document/345086946/MJ-Estate-Third-Demurrer-to-Safechuck

MJ Estate reserve the right to challenge Jane Doe using a pseudonym

MJ Estate questions if Jane Doe was right to use a pseudonym when she filed her lawsuit. Both Robson and Safechuck were able to file lawsuits under their own names. Given how public and accessible Robson is on social media, it is safe to assume he isn’t receiving any serious backlash from MJ fans. If the most visible and well-known Robson doesn’t need to go into hiding, it is curious why Jane Doe needed to file her lawsuit anonymously. MJ Estate is reserving their right to challenge this.

A little note: Due to a slip up by Robson/Safechuck and Doe lawyers, we here at Daily Michael have some idea about Jane Doe’s identity. However we weren’t able to independently confirm or deny our suspicions. Therefore we won’t be disclosing any unconfirmed suspicions we have.

In a surprise development, just 2 weeks before the demurrer hearing Jane Doe dismissed her sexual abuse case against Michael Jackson. Right now, our information is very limited – Jane Doe’s lawyers filed the request for dismissal and the case was dismissed without prejudice – meaning technically it can get refiled. We will try to get more information and especially check the status of the other cases of Robson and Safechuck.

janedoedismissed

In the meantime, I can’t help but wonder why this dismissal, why at this time right before a demurrer. If you read our previous blog posts, you will know how skeptical we have been about Jane Doe. To us it has been clear she had been recruited by the lawyers in an attempt to force a settlement. Personally I don’t think the lawyers ever intended to take this to a trial.

Lately Estate had also mentioned they may challenge Jane Doe using a pseudonym. If she hoped she could make a quick buck while staying anonymous, now she knows that won’t happen. So not wanting her identity become public could be another reason to dismiss the case.

And finally the demurrer. In our last blog post we wondered if these latest demurrers would be the end of Safechuck and Jane Doe cases. As we repeatedly wrote, they are trying to claim non-existent relationship between them & the MJ Companies, that the MJ companies are some sort of children related companies and so on. They are desperate. It seemed like Judge knew this too, giving Safechuck only 15 days to amend his complaint the last time round. So in short, it looked like the judge was getting ready to dismiss Safechuck and Jane Doe cases for good. So is this a preemptive move? To pull the case before the judge dismisses it for good?

Hard to know what the reasons are. Of course technically speaking they can refile the case. So this could also be a "back to the drawing board" situation to come up with more logical legal arguments. Who knows? As I mentioned in the beginning, we will try to get more information but keep in mind we might not be able to learn much. Dismissal request form doesn’t require to list a reason why.

PS: I also want to address a possible speculation. Some might speculate this dismissal by Jane Doe might mean a settlement with MJ Estate. Given this was dismissed as “without prejudice” and Jane Doe may refile if she wants, it shows that there was no settlement. When parties settle, the cases get dismissed “with prejudice” – in other words in a way that they cannot be brought again. 

At the end of December 2016, MJ Estate filed a motion to compel Wade Robson to produce essential documents. This motion to compel showed us how Wade Robson was blatantly and repeatedly lying to withhold discovery from MJ Estate. Please check the previous two blog posts about this topic at the following links “Busted! Wade Robson got caught hiding evidence and shopping a tell-all book” and “Excerpts from Wade and Joy Robson Depositions and E-mails”.  

A hearing on motion to compel happened on February 2nd, 2017 and from case summary we saw that the judge granted Estate’s request. However we didn’t know the specifics of the ruling. Recently a copy of the order was filed with the court so we were able to get it.

Ruling document: https://www.scribd.com/document/341877298/Order-on-MJ-Estate-Motion-to-Compel-Robson

According to the judge’s ruling, Robson is ordered to

  • -     Produce all responsive documents in his possession, custody and control
  • -     Search his previously produced emails determine whether they have attachments and reproduce each email together with its attachments
  • -     Produce unredacted versions of emails to/from/ cc’ed/bbc’ed to any members of his family
  • -     Produce unredacted versions of emails to/from/cc’ed/bbc’ed to Helen Yu where a third party who is not a lawyer is a sender or recipient of the email.
    • -     This includes emails that were sent to Alan Nevins the literary agent
    • -     Emails solely between Wade Robson and Helen Yu don’t need to be produced.
  • -     Produce all drafts and versions of his book in their original format with all electronic and metadata information intact
  • -     Prepare and sign a declaration that details
    • -     All steps he took to search for and locate responsive documents
    • -     Why he was unable to locate some emails produced by his mother and sister
    • -     All steps he took to preserve potentially responsive documents since filing this case