Two men who claim they were sexually abused as children by Michael Jackson can reopen their lawsuit against his companies, US court judges ruled on Friday, the BBC reported, News.ro reported.

Wade Robson and James Safechuck, both 40, say Jackson abused them for years as children. Now they can continue the previously blocked lawsuits against the companies of the megastar, whose death was 14 years ago in June this year. The two say these companies had a responsibility to protect them.

However, Michael Jackson’s lawyers claim that the pop artist is innocent.

Robson and Safechuck allege that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jackson abused them while staying at his Neverland ranch. The allegations surfaced in the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, which Jackson’s family described as a “media lynching.”

In 2020, a Los Angeles judge ruled that James Safechuck could not sue Michael Jackson’s companies because the companies had no duty of care to him. A year later, the same judge ruled against Wade Robeson on similar grounds.

But on Friday, a California appeals court disagreed, ruling that “a corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not relieved of its duty to protect those children simply because it is the sole property of the abuser.” . .

“It would be wrong to claim that there is no obligation based on the fact that the defendant company has only one shareholder,” the court ruled. “And, therefore, we reverse the decisions previously issued for corporations,” the document reads.

Vince Finaldi, an attorney for Safechuck and Robson, said the court overturned “previous wrongful decisions in these cases that were contrary to California law and would have set a dangerous precedent that would have put children at risk.”

Jonathan Steinsapir, the lawyer handling Michael Jackson’s estate, said he was “absolutely convinced” that Michael Jackson was innocent and said the allegations were “contrary to all credible and independently verified evidence.”

Michael Jackson died at the age of 51 after cardiac arrest at home following an overdose of propofol, an anesthetic administered by his personal physician at his request. The megastar suffered from insomnia and was preparing to return to the stage with a grand show at the O2 arena in London.