Overview
- Los Angeles Superior Court entered a default judgment ordering Jackson to pay Rita Butler Barrett about $6.5 million in damages plus $7,131.84 in legal costs.
- The case was filed in December 2023 under California’s Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, a law that temporarily lets survivors bring older civil claims.
- Barrett’s lawyers said they could not find Jackson, so the court allowed service by publication in the Los Angeles Times, and he still did not answer.
- The lawsuit alleges Jackson forced his way into Barrett’s Encino home in 1988 and raped her, and it claims Motown founder Berry Gordy helped cover it up, though he is not a defendant.
- A default judgment does not reflect a contested trial on the facts, and Jackson could try to challenge service or seek to set the judgment aside as Barrett moves to collect.