A California judge signaled Thursday he was on the verge of sharply reducing the $12.9 million in damages that a jury awarded to a housekeeper who was mauled by a massive dog outside Chris Brown’s mansion in 2020.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge
Huey P. Cotton heard arguments from the housekeeper’s lawyer Thursday but repeatedly indicated he was not persuaded to change his tentative order. In her address to the court, the lawyer for housekeeper Maria Avila revealed the contents of the unpublished order.
“If your honor is convinced that some [scaling back] is warranted, then I’d ask for a lesser reduction. The magnitude of the current reduction is almost 40 percent. That’s over $5 million,” Avila’s lawyer, Nancy Doumanian, said. “Given the gravity and permanence of the injuries that Miss Avila had, we’d ask for a reduction to $11 million, your honor, not what the court is proposing.”
Doumanian disputed the judge’s tentative finding that there was insufficient evidence Avila had suffered permanent nerve damage. She pointed to testimony from the surgeon who treated Avila on the night of the attack and continued caring for her through reconstructive procedures on her face and arm.
At trial, the surgeon told jurors that Avila had sustained 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, Doumanian said. He also testified that Avila continued to experience neurological deficits in her face, including heightened sensitivity to pain.
“We can either retry it, or you can agree [to the tentative ruling],” Judge Cotton said. “I just need a decision.”
When Doumanian asked whether the judge’s proposed cuts applied to the $900,000 that the jury awarded for Avila’s future medical expenses, Judge Cotton said he would consider the issue further and allow her to file a proposal on how the cuts should be divided among the different parts of the award. But he was clear he wasn’t asking for more argument about whether the overall reduction should be smaller.
“I think your time is probably better spent figuring out the allocation,” he said. “I’ll consider the proposed allocation.”
The two-week trial that led to the $12.9 million jury award unfolded in a Los Angeles County courtroom last June, with Brown and Avila both taking the witness stand. 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 told jurors on June 24.
Speaking softly, Avila said she had gone outside to empty a vacuum bag when the large Caucasian Shepherd, also known as a Central Asian Ovcharka, pounced on her without warning. With her hands visibly shaking, she rolled up her left sleeve and turned her gaze to the wall as jurors examined the raised and pitted skin covering her forearm. She then removed her glasses and lifted her bangs to reveal a pattern of scars running from beneath her left eye up across her forehead.
Testifying in Spanish through an interpreter, Avila described a grueling recovery. She said surgeons harvested skin from her abdomen to graft onto her mangled arm, leaving her in extreme pain and unable to bend at the waist. The lacerations to her face required dozens of stitches. Pandemic restrictions barred her family from visiting during her five days in the hospital, forcing her to endure the ordeal alone.
Brown, 37, testified as the first witness at the trial. He told jurors he heard the dog, Hades, growling outside and 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.
Describing Avila’s injuries for the jury, the singer pointed to his forehead and traced a finger down his nose and under his eye. “It was cut, like, severed,” he said. “I know it’s graphic, but you could see the skin was kind of raised. You could see the cut and the blood coming out.… It was a lot of blood.”
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.
“What would have been the problem with you being there and waiting for paramedics to get there with a woman bleeding in your driveway? Why would that be a problem for you as a celebrity?” Doumanian asked, incredulous.
“Because of how my image is and always used. I didn’t want a misleading story, or like a circus, from my status. It’s pretty sticky when it comes to that. So, me staying out of the way was advised,” he said.
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.
After the verdict, Brown’s lawyers filed a motion for a new trial claiming the $12.9 million award was excessive and that the judge erred by allowing jurors to hear evidence that Brown had a felony conviction. The conviction was for Brown’s 2009 domestic violence assault on his then-girlfriend, Rihanna. Jurors didn’t hear details of that incident, only that the conviction was on his record.
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