Los Angeles (AFP) – The jury mulling whether tour promoters AEG Live should pay huge damages to Michael Jackson’s family over his 2009 death has reached a verdict, a court spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The six-man, six-woman panel — which has been meeting since Thursday afternoon after a five-month trial in Los Angeles — deliberated for about three days, since last Thursday.
The verdict was due to be read out in court at 3:30 pm, said a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Superior Court, where the trial got under way in April.
Jackson died on June 25, 2009 from an overdose of the anesthetic propofol given by doctor Conrad Murray at his rented mansion in Los Angeles, where he was rehearsing for the shows at London’s O2 Arena.
Murray, a Grenada-born cardiologist, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a criminal trial in 2011 for giving the drug to the star — who suffered from chronic insomnia — to help him sleep. Murray was jailed for four years.
In the civil trial, the singer’s mother Katherine Jackson, 83, alleges that AEG Live negligently hired an inappropriate and incompetent doctor and missed a series of red flags about the star’s failing health in the run-up to his death.
The Jacksons want AEG Live to pay $85 million to each of the star’s three children for emotional loss, and an unspecified amount for economic losses, estimated at up to $1.6 billion. AEG’s lawyers call the figures “absurd.”
