A US judge in California has halted a lawsuit against former pop superstar Michael Jackson filed by the family of a woman who died at a hospital two years ago after she was moved to make room for Jackson.

Judge Rodney Melville, also the judge in Jackson's child molestation case in 2005, ruled Tuesday that the lawsuit by the 73-year-old woman's family cannot continue as filed. But he gave the plaintiffs' attorney 30 days to redraft their complaint.

The family of Manuela Gomez Ruiz had sued Jackson and Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, claiming that she died of a heart attack after the medical center moved her from a two-bed room so Jackson could occupy it by himself.

During the trial of his child molestation case in 2005, Jackson was once brought in the hospital with flu-like symptoms. He was acquitted later in the case.

The judge on Tuesday supported 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.  

(Agencies via Xinhua August 23, 2007)