An attorney for Michael Jackson said Tuesday that the pop star will agree to a judgment directing him to pay $216,000, plus interest, to a Torrance law firm that sued him for overdue fees.
The law firm of Ayscough & Marar sued Jackson on Feb. 21, 2006, in Torrance Superior Court. Work that the firm did for Jackson included obtaining court orders to delay discovery in civil cases and keeping information from being publicly released while Jackson’s child molestation trial was in progress in Santa Maria in 2005, according to the lawsuit.
Ayscough & Marar also helped defend Jackson against a lawsuit brought by former business associate Marc Schaffel, alleging the singer owed him $1.4 million for past work.
A Santa Monica jury last July 14 awarded Schaffel $900,000, but directed him to pay Jackson $200,000 to satisfy a countersuit alleging Schaffel misappropriated funds.
Ayscough & Marar’s case against the singer was moved to the downtown Los Angeles courthouse last October at the request of Jackson’s lawyers. Trial of the case was scheduled to begin today.
But Jackson’s lawyer, Marshall L. Brubacher, agreed to a judgment against his client after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled that the entertainer’s lawyers could not use many of the defenses they had hoped to raise during trial.
Brubacher told Chalfant that agreeing to the judgment made economic sense for his client.
“We want to stop the hemorraging,” Brubacher said.
Brubacher also said he and Jackson’s other lawyers will not challenge the judgment later on the basis that their client was not present in court.
Chalfant said he was striking the defenses because of Jackson’s “willful failure” to turn over information requested by the law firm, and for ignoring a June 12 court order to finish a deposition the singer walked out of on Feb. 27.
Michael McCarthy, an attorney for Ayscough & Marar, said yesterday that Jackson was scheduled to resume the deposition last Friday at the Westlake Village law office of another of his lawyers, Thomas C. Mundell, but never showed up.
Brubacher said after today’s hearing that he does not know why the singer did not appear for the deposition, but the lawyer told Chalfant that Jackson likely would not have known the answers to the questions McCarthy intended to ask.
McCarthy said interest on the judgment amounts to another $40,000, meaning his clients are actually entitled to $256,000. McCarthy said he also will ask Chalfant to order Jackson to pay him about $280,000 for the lawyer’s work in representing the law firm.
Brubacher said he has not yet figured out how much interest there will be on the judgment, and that the additional $280,000 McCarthy wants is too high.
“This was a simple case,” Brubacher said. “We tried to settle this several times.”
Jackson countersued the law firm last Aug. 29. The singer’s allegations included a claim that one of the firm’s lawyers threatened to expose confidential information about him to the media.
Chalfant later dismissed the Jackson countersuit, finding it lacked merit, said Brent Ayscough, a partner in Ayscough & Marar. He said Jackson remains mired in debt because of his lifestyle.
KNBC
