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A $20 million judgment given to Michael Jackson’s attorneys in 2008 in the XtraJet case came crashing to earth today when the state's Second District Court of Appeals threw out the award.

R&B crooner Chris Brown checked in with Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg Thursday afternoon to show that he’s on the road to becoming a model citizen, nine months after brutally slapping around his girlfriend at the time, the chanteuse Rihanna.

Brown was accompanied to Department 123 by celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos and a Praetorian guard of sheriff’s deputies -- who requested reporters and court bystanders to “give us two feet.”

Only a few feet separated celebrity oddity Nicole Richie from paparazzi this afternoon, but for once the photogs took no pictures.

Instead, they sat quietly, unrepresented by lawyers, in a downtown civil court hearing while a judge listened to testimony about their rear-ending Richie’s car Oct. 5.

At the end of the day, Richie was granted an extension of an existing temporary restraining order against the two men, Ivon Miguel and Eduardo Cerri Arrivebene.

The big glass-cube Superior Court Building on Commonwealth Avenue once belonged to a health-insurance company. Visitors to Judge Peter Lichtman’s courtroom Wednesday morning found a case less in need of health care than of immediate triage.