A California jury has decided that AEG Live were not responsible for Michael Jackson's death, ending a five-month trial and saving the concert promoters from having to pay huge damages.
Lawyers for Jackson's 83-year-old mother, Katherine — who filed a wrongful death lawsuit alongside the pop star's three children — had asked for up to $1.5 billion, largely based on estimates of what Jackson could have earned if he had lived.
After deliberating for 13 hours over four days, the jury of six men and six women actually agreed with Mrs Jackson's lawyers that AEG Live had hired Dr Conrad Murray, the doctor who gave the entertainer a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol. But they rejected the argument that Dr Murray had been unfit to perform his job of caring for Jackson as he prepared for his ambitious series of comeback concerts four years ago, relieving AEG Live of liability.
