Counsel Concerns

The Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, Division Seven, upheld the denial of an attorney's motion to strike a malicious prosecution action filed against him by a company claiming, like the attorney's client, to own the right to sue entertainer Michael Jackson for failure to appear at a concert for the “Jackson Family Honors” TV show. Smith-Hemion Productions Inc. v. Segura, B171299. Jacob Segura had served as counsel to Asset Recovery Co. (ARC), which claimed it purchased at a New Jersey sheriff's sale the right of Joseph Iny to sue entertainer Michael Jackson over Jackson's failure to appear at an Atlantic City concert for “Jackson Family Honors.” (Iny had loaned money to Jackson Communications Inc.) Segura filed suit on behalf of ARC against Jackson and against Smith-Hemion Productions, the show's producer, which also claimed to own the right to sue Jackson. The Los Angeles Superior Court sustained Smith-Hemion's demurrer to ARC's complaint. The Court of Appeal then ruled that ARC lacked standing to sue Smith-Hemion because a New Jersey court had found that Iny wasn't a secured creditor of JCI. In any case, the court of appeal noted that ARC's suit was time-barred because it had been filed after California's 4-year statute of limitations for breach of Jackson's concert-appearance contract had expired.