A lawyer for Michael Jackson's family told jurors that concert promoter AEG Live should pay USD 85 million per child for the singer's death in 2009.
In his concluding argument in the five-month long wrongful death trial that the Jackson family has brought against AEG Live, lawyer Brian Panish said that concert promoters should have to pay non-economic or personal damages of USD 85 million to each of Jackson's three children and USD 35 million to his mother Katherine, reported the Los Angeles Times.
Michael Jackson. Pic/AFP
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It is for the first time the family has placed a number on the damages that they are seeking from AEG. Panish showed jurors a slide that reminded the panel that an expert witness testified the singer would have earned USD 1.2 billion to USD 1.6 billion if he had lived, from new music, tours, endorsements and a Las Vegas show. "We're not looking for sympathy. We're looking for justice, full and complete," Panish said in his day-long closing argument.
Panish also touched the topic of Jackson's culpability in his death. "It's about shared responsibility. Michael probably has some fault... I'm not going to deny that Michael used prescription drugs and that people told him it's risky to use propofol," Panish said. He said that unless doctor Conrad Murray, who gave Jackson the anesthetic for 60 days to fight insomnia, had been hired by AEG, Jackson would still be alive.
"No Murray, no AEG, no propofol, Michael's still here." Murray was jailed for four years for involuntary manslaughter in 2011. AEG, however, has argued that the singer was responsible for his own death as Murray worked for him. AEG attorneys are set to make closing arguments today before jury takes a decision by the end of the week.
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