Judge Halts Lawsuit Against Michael Jackson, California Hospital
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A lawsuit filed by the family of a woman who died at a hospital soon after she was moved to make room for Michael Jackson cannot continue as filed, a judge has ruled.
The family of Manuela Gomez Ruiz had sued Jackson and Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, claiming she was kept from critical care after she had a heart attack on the same day Jackson was brought in with flu-like symptoms during his 2005 child-molestation trial. Jackson was acquitted in the case.
Judge Rodney Melville -- also the judge in Jackson's molestation case -- on Tuesday allowed challenges to the complaint filed by attorneys for Jackson and the hospital, who had argued the facts of the case didn't justify the complaint.
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Melville gave the plaintiffs' attorney, James McKiernan, 30 days to redraft their complaint. McKiernan said he would refile the necessary documents.
The lawsuit said the 73-year-old Ruiz was on life-support after a massive heart attack and was moved from a two-bed room so Jackson could occupy it by himself.
She was kept alive in an exam room using hand-pumped oxygen until she could be reconnected to a life-support machine, court papers said.
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The lawsuit alleged she had another heart attack but the crowd milling around the pop star delayed her arrival at the critical-care unit. Ruiz died later that night.
The complaint cites the "outrageous, circus-like atmosphere they orchestrated during the last hours of Manuela Ruiz's life and its obvious emotional and mental lasting effects upon the plaintiffs."