The housekeeper mauled by a massive Caucasian Shepherd outside Chris Brown’s house four years ago has agreed to reduce her jury award to $9.5 million to avoid a new trial.
A jury sided with Maria Avila after a two-week trial in June, awarding her $12.9
million for her injuries. But the judge later concluded that the amount was not supported by the evidence. At a hearing last week, Judge Huey Cotton made it clear Avila would have to undergo a new trial on damages if she declined a reduced award.
In a “conditional order” issued Tuesday, Judge Cotton called the jury’s award “excessive” and confirmed Brown would be entitled to a new trial on damages alone if Avila rejected the new $9.5 million.
“Maria Avila hereby unequivocally accepts the [downward adjustment] and consents to the reduction of her damages award to $9,500,000,” Avila’s lawyer, Nancy Doumanian, wrote in her notice of acceptance filed Thursday. The lawyer did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment on the reasoning behind the decision, but a new trial would have posed the prospect of added expense, uncertainty, and an unknown emotional toll. (Brown’s lawyers did not respond to a separate request for comment.)
At the hearing last week, Doumanian argued that Avila suffered a serious injury to her radial nerve, leaving her with reduced movement in her wrist and fingers and impairing her ability to grip objects, write, type, dress, groom herself, clean, and perform other daily activities. She asked the court to consider reducing the amount to only $11 million.
Both Brown and Avila testified at the trial in the Van Nuys section of Los Angeles. Avila broke down crying as she recounted for jurors the Dec. 12, 2020 mauling at Brown’s home in the Tarzana neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley. She said the attack left her with severe injuries to her arm and face, extensive scarring, and post-traumatic stress disorder. “I will never be the same again,” she said in Spanish translated by an interpreter.
Speaking softly, Avila said she had gone outside to empty a vacuum bag when the large security dog, also known as a Central Asian Ovcharka, pounced on her without warning. With her hands visibly shaking, she rolled up her sleeve to show the raised and pitted skin covering her left forearm. She removed her glasses to reveal a pattern of scars running from beneath her left eye up across her forehead. The lacerations to her face required dozens of stitches.
Brown, 37, testified as the first witness and recalled hearing the dog, Hades, growling outside. He rushed downstairs to find Avila face down and motionless on the ground. He told jurors he locked up the dog, called out to his security guard to summon help, and bent down to make sure Avila was breathing. He acknowledged he didn’t personally call 911, saying he feared a recording would be leaked to the media. He said he never touched Avila but told her help was on the way as she lay with bloody injuries in his driveway.
Brown said he left his property before paramedics arrived because his manager allegedly suggested it. He also confirmed he never asked his security to preserve his home surveillance video from the incident.
Before trial, Brown admitted negligence under California’s dog-bite statute. He continued to dispute the extent of Avila’s injuries and claimed she was partly at fault for going outside alone. The jury disagreed.
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