Wrongful Death Attorneys
Record Company Can Sue Over Popular Singer’s Death
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Nearly three years after the popular singer and actress Aaliyah died in a plane crash in the Bahamas after shooting a video, a Manhattan judge has decided that her record company can sue the video production company to settle questions of negligence and damages. In a decision that became public yesterday, Justice Carol Edmead of State Supreme Court ruled that Aaliyah’s record company, Blackground Entertainment, could sue the production company, Instinct Productions, which had provided transportation for the filming of the video for ‘’Rock the Boat.'’ Aaliyah owned 10 percent of Blackground Entertainment, which had filed a negligence lawsuit in civil court against Instinct Productions in November. Instinct sought to have the suit dismissed, arguing that Blackground had no right to recover damages because Aaliyah was a company employee. (The State Court of Appeals has held that an employer has no right to recover damages when an employee is injured because of a third party’s negligence.) But Justice Edmead found that Aaliyah was not only a Blackground employee but its chief asset. Blackground’s ‘’growth and prosperity were primarily the result of its efforts to successfully develop and nurture Aaliyah’s career,'’ the judge wrote. Justice Edmead also noted that Blackground was founded in 1992 by Barry Hankerson, Aaliyah’s uncle, for one purpose: to promote Aaliyah, who was 13 at the time. ‘’Therefore, Blackground’s negligence cause of action is not an improper attempt by an employer to recover damages incurred as a result of the wrongful death of an employee,'’ Justice Edmead wrote. She continued: ‘’But it is an ordinary negligence claim seeking recovery for damages allegedly arising out of the negligent destruction of a valuable property asset.'’ Aaliyah, who was born Aaliyah Dana Haughton in Brooklyn, was 22 and a multimillion-sellingsinger when she died on Aug. 25, 2001. She was returning from Abaco Island in the Bahamas, where she had been making a video clip, to Miami in a private plane, which crashed on takeoff. Eight other passengers were also killed. Aaliyah was 14 when she made her first album, ‘’Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number,'’ in 1994. It included two Top 10 singles, ‘’Back and Forth'’ and ‘’At Your Best (You Are Love).'’ Investigating the crash of the plane, a twin-engine Cessna 402B, the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the aircraft had been overloaded. An autopsy performed on the body of the pilot, Luis Antonio Morales, revealed cocaine in his urine and traces of alcohol in his stomach, the Bahamas Department of Civil Aviation reported in July 2002. A man who answered the phone yesterday at Blackground Entertainment said no one would comment on the ruling. A representative for Instinct Productions could not be found to comment. After Aaliyah’s death, her parents, Diane and Michael Haughton, brought a wrongful-death lawsuit against Instinct and several other defendants in State Superior Court in Los Angeles. The Haughtons reached an undisclosed settlement in October. |
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