Michael Jackson’s estate wins appeal in ‘Leaving Neverland’ suit against HBO

A federal appeals court panel sided with Michael Jackson’s estate Monday and said HBO must arbitrate a dispute over its Emmy-winning 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland.”

The estate sued HBO for $100 million in March 2019, saying the documentary violated a broad non-disparagement provision included in a 1992 deal to air Jackson’s “Live in Bucharest” concert from his “Dangerous” tour.

A lower court ordered the case to arbitration last year, but HBO appealed, saying the 1992 contract had expired and had no “continuing validity.”

The decision Monday from the 9th Circuit rejected the appeal and said arbitration should decide whether or not the estate’s claims deserve a remedy.

“When analyzing the arbitration agreement, as a matter of federal law, any doubts concerning the scope of arbitrable issues should be resolved in favor of arbitration,” the three-judge panel wrote in the ruling.

The court found that the 1992 contract included “detailed and stringent confidentiality provisions explicitly restraining HBO ‘either during or after HBO’s contact’ with Jackson from disclosing ‘any information relating to … [his] personal life.’”

The estate took issue with “Leaving Neverland” claiming Jackson abused children on his “Dangerous” tour and with the documentary using footage from “Live in Bucharest.”

“An arbitration clause can still bind the parties, even if the parties fully performed the contract years ago,” the panel wrote.

Judges Richard Paez, Lawrence VanDyke and Karin J. Immergut stressed they were not ruling on the substance of the estate’s claims, only the right of estate lawyers to make their case in arbitration.

“We may only identify whether the parties agreed to arbitrate such claims; it is for the arbitrator to decide whether those claims are meritorious,” the panel wrote.

HBO can appeal the ruling to the full 9th Circuit.

“Leaving Neverland” tells the story of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, two former child performers who say Jackson groomed and sexually abused them as minors.

The estate previously tried to get HBO to drop the project and compared its airing to a “public lynching.”