The two men running Michael Jackson’s estate are demanding Paris Jackson pay the legal fees they racked up fighting her in court after she raised questions about the payments they made, Us Weekly can exclusively report.
On Thursday, November 13, John Branca and John McClain, filed court docs asking a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to force Paris, 27, to pay the fees they incurred as they defended the estate’s payments to outside law firms.
Branca and McClain said that they have yet to determine how much they want Paris to cough up. A rep for Paris told Us, “They have not filed a request specifying the amount of fees sought — and if they do, we will oppose it because this was a minor procedural issue with no bearing on the substance of the case.”
The request came shortly after the judge denied Paris’ petition seeking to block certain fees from being paid. Paris’ rep told Us the decision did not mean the fight was over.
The rep explained, “This order is limited to minor procedural issues and does not change the facts: the pattern of behavior displayed by the executors and their attorneys raises significant red flags, and Paris will continue working to ensure her family is treated fairly. We will be submitting an updated filing shortly.”
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As Us first reported, Paris and the estate executors have been going back and forth for months. It all started when Paris objected to McClain and Branca’s motion for legal fees for outside counsel who worked on estate projects. The motion pertained to work done in 2018.
Paris explained she was frustrated that the requests for fees were filed years after the work was done, which made it hard to review the invoices. (The estate said this arrangement was agreed to in court years ago.)
In addition, Paris claims the amount requested for each law firm changed over time without explanation.
Paris said she is “concerned” with the executor’s paying “so-called ‘premium payments’ for unrecorded attorney time.”
“During this one six-month period alone in 2018, Executors request that the Court approve $625,000 in payments to three law firms for what they say is uncaptured time, without explanation as to why counsel was incapable of recording unbilled time, or why such a failure should not preclude payment,” her opposition read. “Even worse, these payments appear, at least in part, to consist of lavish gratuities bestowed upon already well-compensated counsel.”
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In her court docs, Paris also believed the estate violated the court order when, instead of making partial payments to the certain law firms for work done, they paid them in full.
“As painful as it is to say in print, the present records suggest a group of closely-knit, highly-compensated lawyers is exploiting Executors’ lack of oversight to skim money from the Estate, in plain view,” Paris’ motion alleged.
In addition, Paris said she found “several inconsistencies that demand close scrutiny of all fees and costs sought in the petition.”
The estate denied all of Paris’ claims. They argued that every payment made was proper and normal for the entertainment industry.
The estate said Paris, and the other beneficiaries –who are Paris’ brothers Prince Jackson and Bigi Jackson, have benefited immensely from their work.
“Few have benefited more from the Executors’ business judgment than [Paris] herself, who has received roughly $65 million from the Estate in benefits. She would have never received that had the executors followed a typical playbook for an Estate like this one in July 2009,” a lawyer for the estate said. Paris’ rep said the figures are “misstated” and an attempt to “distract.”
Branca and McClain said Paris’ “argument that the payment of about $600,000 in bonuses (that would be returned if not approved) in a year where the Estate earned almost $300 million would justify dramatically impeding the Executors’ ability to operate the Estate’s businesses is hardly worth responding to further.”
In their response to Paris, Branca and McClain’s legal team said, “The Executors welcome review of their actions. They always have. And why wouldn’t they? In the Court’s own words, the executors’ business judgment has taken an estate that ‘started out as nothing but debt and substantial ongoing obligations’ and ‘turned [it] into a $2 billion estate’— an estate that is now ’a powerhouse and a force in the music business today.’”
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In a separate filing, Paris compared the executors to the Wizard of Oz.
When describing their actions, Paris’ lawyer wrote, “That conduct, born of comfort and arrogance, is indefensible, and Executors have done nothing to indicate otherwise. Instead, like the Wizard of Oz, they demand that the Court trust them blindly, refusing to let anyone look behind the curtain.”
As Us previously reported, the estate battled Michael’s mom, Katherine Jackson, last year as she opposed their effort to sell a portion of Michael’s music rights to Sony. The deal was worth an estimated $600 million.
Michael died in 2009 at the age of 50.
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