How the MJ Estate Misrepresented a Court Ruling on Robson

March 19, 2020

A widely repeated myth claims that Wade Robson’s lawsuit was thrown out because the judge decided one part of his testimony was so unbelievable that it undermined his entire sworn declaration. Supporters of this idea often cite quotes that appear to come from official court documents, giving the impression that the judge dismissed Robson’s case on the basis that he had lied.

According to the myth:

This narrative has been circulated heavily by Michael Jackson supporters. For example, Charles Thomson, who describes himself as a journalist, repeated this claim during an interview on BBC Essex. He criticised mainstream news outlets for not reporting what he believed were crucial details, calling their silence a “catastrophic failure in journalism.”

Listen to the audio below.

Filmmakers Danny Wu — known for Square One: Michael Jackson — and Jin Chohan — who made Leaving Neverland: The Aftermath — have repeated this claim as well. In their videos, they each displayed a screenshot that they said was taken from the judge’s official statement, presenting it as genuine evidence.

Watch the video below.

The claim is simply untrue. That wording does not appear anywhere in the judge’s summary judgment or in any official court document.

So where did this supposed quote come from?

It originates not from the court, but from a legal brief submitted by the Jackson Estate during its arbitration dispute with HBO over the documentary Leaving Neverland. In that filing, the Estate used this phrasing as part of its strategy to cast doubt on Wade Robson’s credibility, implying that he had been dishonest under oath. Crucially, this was the Estate’s own characterisation of the situation, not a quotation from the judge.

On page 11 of that document, the Estate asserted that:

A near identical claim is made on page 14:

Read the full document here.

The statement relates to Robson’s assertion that he did not know about the Michael Jackson Estate until March 2013. The Estate disputed this, arguing that Robson had in fact met John Branca — one of the Estate’s co‑executors — in 2011 to discuss the possibility of directing a Cirque du Soleil show based on Jackson’s work.

A similar, though legally separate, phrase does appear in the judge’s summary judgment. It states:

The sentence in question refers to a completely separate legal point: whether Michael Jackson’s companies could be held responsible for his alleged behaviour. The judge ruled they could not, because the companies had no legal power to control or supervise Jackson personally. That was the reason the case was dismissed. It had nothing to do with any suggestion that Wade Robson had been dishonest.

The judge’s decision turned on technical points of law, especially the question of “duty of care”. For Robson (the plaintiff) to succeed, he needed to show that Jackson’s companies had both the authority and the responsibility to oversee Jackson’s conduct and prevent harm. His legal team could not establish this, mainly because Jackson owned and ran the companies himself. In practice, they existed to serve his business interests, not to manage his behaviour.

In a separate matter—Estate of Michael Jackson v. HBO—a disputed quote was used by the Estate to argue that Robson knew about the Estate’s existence earlier than he said he did. This mattered because it affected whether he could rely on exceptions to the statute of limitations (the legal time limit for bringing a claim). Crucially, the judge never stated that Robson lied. If the court had reached such a conclusion, it would have been spelled out plainly in the ruling.

What the judge actually found was that Robson had “actual knowledge” of the key facts behind his claim by February 2011, or at the very latest by the end of that year. This finding was based on emails and other evidence, including a 2012 message in which Robson mentioned a legal issue. The full email has never been made public, but Robson later explained its context himself.

A key point in the ruling was the judge’s interpretation of California Probate Code 9103. Under this law, what matters is the moment a person becomes aware of the facts that form the basis of a claim—not the moment they realise those facts might give rise to a legal case. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one in probate and civil procedure.

Robson’s lawyers argued that he did not understand the Estate’s legal status, or his ability to file a claim, until he sought legal advice. They also raised the doctrine of equitable estoppel, which can allow a claim to proceed late if certain conditions prevented timely filing. The judge rejected these arguments—not because he thought Robson was lying, but because the evidence showed Robson already had enough information to meet the legal definition of “actual knowledge”.

To put it simply: the judge disagreed with Robson’s legal position. He did not accuse Robson of dishonesty, and he did not dismiss his sworn statement as untrue. Claims that the judge said otherwise are false and have been repeated by the Estate and its supporters to undermine Robson’s credibility.