Gerryevans, did AEG ever hire a tour doctor? From what I understand AEG rarely was a producer of a tour as they mostly promoted tours. If they hired a tour doctor in the past, that doctor was most likely vetted even if just through experience with the doctor (example: Gongaware preferring to hire Dr. Finklestein because he had already worked with him and knew him personally).
With Michael, they were allegedly hiring a personal doctor solely for Michael as a third party without any prior knowledge of him. This means that a background check should have been done BEFORE alleged implied employment; i.e. successful vetting could result in hiring.
This concept of Michael was sick in June so a background check needed to be performed is NOT what the plaintiffs are suggesting at all.
I was the one who said that, so I assumed Gerryevans was commenting on what I said, not what the Jacksons said.
I don't really know what to think of those background checks at the initial time of hiring (in may, when no one suspected anything).
On one hand what you say , a doctor being potentially dangerous and AEG being a third party, makes sense. It makes sense that Jorrie or AEG should have checked, to protect AEG / themselves for liability. As a lawyer, her job is to anticipate any potential problem, it was a rare thing for AEG to do, and that's why they asked her to handle the contract.
On the other hand, at the time, Michael had the right to choose his own doctor, since Murray was a personnal doctor, not a tour doctor, and Michael was the one who asked for Murray, and Murray had been his doctor for 3 years prior to that.
Had she checked, she would have come up with a relatively bad credit check and several default judgement against Murray's companies and himself personnally. At the time, it would only have meant that he lied when he was negociating his salary. It is actually weird to go from 5 millions to 1.5 million, and weird to go from 12 millions gross to 1.5 million. But lying doesn't mean malpractice, it means financial problems, they could not have known the reasons for the financial problems. She would have found out about at least 400 000 dollars outsanding debts (deafult judgements against GCA, Acres Home and Murray, excluding child support).
It does mean that there could have been a conflict of interest, or better said that the conflict of interest was made worse (the AEG-Murray contract is a conflict of interest in itself), that could make the doctor susceptible to influence, and at the very least she should have brought this to AEG's attention, or make a 3 party contract. Or better, no contract involving AEG at all, to protect them.
Let's believe that she really did tell Phillips that Murray was successful and that Phillips believed that. Later on, when problems happened and some doubted Murray, it did become a crucial info, that Phillips considered and used to convince Ortega. Still assuming Phillips was sincere - which I don't believe- assuming he was sincere, knowing that Murray was in financial trouble and actually needed the money might have changed his view of the situation in june. At that time, Murray was still negociating his contract, AEG could have pulled out easily.
Phillips mentionning that shows - which is common sense - that a doctor can be influenced by money problems, even though he shouldn't. It shows he was aware of a potential conflict of interest, and unethical behavior, related to money issues.
Murray did do what he did because he needed the money, same as Klein and Hofflin messed up because of money.
Whether we agree or not with them, the Jacksons argument make sense because they also say that AEG (Gongaware) was aware of unethical doctors. They have not proved that Gongaware knew IMO, but the argument in itself makes sense if you consider AEG knew of potential unethical doctors.
