Michael Jackson's family have lost their negligence case against the King of Pop's tour promoter AEG Live.
A Los Angeles jury found the concert promoter behind MJ's series of comeback concerts not guilty in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the pop superstar’s mother Katherine.
“The jury’s decision completely vindicates AEG Live, confirming what we have known from the start – that although Michael Jackson’s death was a tragedy, it was not a tragedy of AEG Live’s making,” said lawyer Marvin Putnam in a statement.
Michael Jackson promoting his This Is It tour
Jackson's family were seeking damages that exceeded $1 billion including $85 million to each of Jackson’s three children and $35 million for his mother Katherine, the Los Angeles Times reports.
In 2011, Jackson's doctor for the tour Dr Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter by a criminal jury after the singer died in June 2009 after being given doses of a powerful anaesthetic called propofol to aid his sleep.
Jackson's lawyer Brian Panish had argued AEG Live shared negligence in hiring Murray.
However, the jury found that Dr Conrad Murray was not unfit or incompetent to work for the job he was hired for.
MJ's last tour, This Is It, is now known as the biggest tour that never happened.
Fifty concerts were planned to be held at The O2 Arena in London, beginning in July 2009 and continuing through to March 2010. However, with all concerts sold out, Jackson died less than three weeks before the first concert date.
