A state appellate court today reinstated part of a lawsuit that Britney Spears’ self-described former manager filed against the pop star and her parents.
The ruling by the three-justice panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed some of the rulings handed down in mid-trial by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Suzanne Brugera in November 2012, when she tossed all of Osama “Sam” Lutfi’s case against the singer and her parents, Jamie and Lynne Spears.
The justices ruled that Lutfi can have a trial on his breach-of-contract suit against Spears and a battery claim against her father. All other claims against Jamie Spears, and a defamation claim against Lynne Spears, remain dismissed. The 49-page unanimous opinion was written by Justice Victoria Chavez.
The case now goes back to Brugera’s courtroom for trial.
The central allegations in Lutfi’s lawsuit, filed in February 2009, focused on the singer’s mother. Lutfi maintained he was defamed in portions of her book, “Through the Storm, A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World.”
Lutfi alleged the book had false passages stating that he admitted throwing away the singer’s phone chargers and disabling her house phones in an attempt to isolate her from her family; that he ground up drugs and put them in her food; and that he disabled her cars.
But Lynne Spears testified the passages were true. Her lawyer, Stephen Rohde, told Bruguera that Lutfi acknowledged he was a “public figure” who had to prove malice, meaning that Lynne Spears either knew the information she wrote was false or did not care whether it was true or not. Lutfi never met that burden, Rohde said.
Lutfi also never challenged the singer’s mother when she wrote many of the same allegations in a sworn declaration in support of a restraining order against him on behalf of her daughter during her 2008 professional meltdown, when she was placed under a court-supervised conservatorship that exists to this day, Rohde said.
Lutfi also maintained that Jamie Spears committed battery by punching him in the stomach during a confrontation at his daughter’s home in January 2008. Jamie Spears’ attorney, Michael Aiken, countered that Lutfi admitted he had only a “momentary incident of discomfort” and did not have any bruises or swelling.
The 33 year-old singer was not present during the trial to fight Lutfi’s breach-of-contract claim because she was declared mentally incompetent to testify by the judge supervising her conservatorship.
Lutfi sought hundreds of thousands of dollars based on his claim she promised him 15 percent of her earnings during a specified time period. He said she told him she made $800,000 a month even when she was not working. But Boxer said the terms of the contract as alleged by Lutfi were “uncertain” and that the “absence of documents was striking.”
