Michael Jackson Sued for "Abuse of Celebrity Status"

Michael Jackson may have to make a court appearance once again. Not for dangling his baby over the ledge of a hotel balcony. Not for inappropriate behavior with children staying in his Neverland estate.

No, this time Michael Jackson is being sued for ABUSE of CELEBRITY STATUS, stemming from events which took place on February 15, 2005. The complaint was filed last Thursday, two years to the day after the events related in the complaint.

Michael Jackson, then at the beginning of his trial on child molestation charges, skipped a hearing, instead showing up - complaining of flu-like symptoms - at the Marian Medical Center, in Santa Barbara County. According to the complaint, after the arrival of the Jackson entourage, Manuela Ruiz, who had been admitted to the hospital earlier in the day after suffering a heart attack, was removed from her bed in a hospital Trauma Room. This room was then used by Michael Jackson.

According to the complaint, relatives and friends of Manuela Ruiz were first ejected from the room, then - at the insistence of Michael Jackson's private security detail (as well as Hospital staff) - forced to remain in limbo for more than twenty minutes. During this time, family and friends were trapped in the Emergency Waiting Room, unable to leave, before Manuela was finally relocated to a room with no medical equipment - an Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Exam Room.

Eventually, after having had oxygen hand-pumped into her lungs for nearly half an hour, mechanical life-support equipment was brought to the Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Exam Room.

Sometime after this, Manuela had a second heart attack, and died later that evening. Michael Jackson, meanwhile, was eventually removed from the Trauma Room (where he had been placed, apparently for privacy reasons), to the empty Pediatric Unit.

The complaint alleges that Michael Jackson's medical records, "will show that his purported "symptoms" not only did not require his placement in the Trauma Room, but that he should not have been admitted to the Hospital at all."