Jackson’s Condition Is Improving, His Doctor Says : Courts: New legal troubles arise as former security guards claim in a lawsuit they were fired because they knew about singer’s visits with young boys.

With yet another round of legal trouble breaking out for Michael Jackson, one of the entertainer’s doctors said in a statement released Monday that Jackson’s condition is “greatly improved” but that his recovery from painkiller addiction will take six to eight weeks.

Dr. Beauchamp Colclough stated that Jackson is not “hiding out” and is not undergoing treatment for any condition other than drug addiction. Those statements apparently were made in response to searches by authorities attempting to determine if Jackson is undergoing any treatment to change his appearance.

But even as Jackson’s camp was releasing that statement, new legal trouble for the entertainer erupted on another front. Late Monday, five of Jackson’s former security guards filed suit against the entertainer, claiming that they were fired in February because they had “firsthand personal knowledge of many of defendant Jackson’s nighttime visits with young boys.”

Their lawyer, Charles T. Mathews, said the five guards were summarily fired from the security detail at Jackson’s parents’ Encino home after they had witnessed Jackson coming and going from that house with a number of young boys. On one occasion, Mathews added, Jackson ordered one of the security guards to destroy a photograph of a naked young boy.

Bertram Fields, Jackson’s civil lawyer, vehemently denied the allegations. “That never happened,” he said. “Nobody ever has been fired for anything they know or don’t know about Michael Jackson.”

The embattled entertainer’s more immediate concern is the civil case brought by a 13-year-old boy who says that Jackson molested him. The boy’s lawyer, Larry R. Feldman, filed a sworn declaration Monday stating that Jackson’s lawyers had refused his request to have a doctor examine the singer.

Jackson’s lawyers, in a letter to Feldman, offered to allow him to see Jackson and decide whether the entertainer is addicted to painkillers. Feldman declined, but said he planned to urge the court to have Jackson examined by a doctor “to determine whether the addiction is real or feigned.”

Feldman has said in court papers that Jackson is using the excuse of painkiller addiction to avoid speaking with attorneys about the allegations of child molestation.

At the same time, authorities are attempting to determine if Jackson is trying to change his appearance so that his physical description would not match one given to police by the 13-year-old boy.

Colclough stated that Jackson’s only medical problem is drug addiction, and that he is not undergoing any other care. “I confirm that no other medical, surgical or psychological condition exists,” Dr. Colclough said in his statement from London, which was released by Jackson’s publicist.

Lawyers for the boy and Jackson are scheduled to be in court this morning to take up the entertainer’s request for a delay in the civil suit.