Chris Brown Must Pay Housekeeper $13 Million for Dog Mauling

Chris Brown was found liable by a Los Angeles jury on Tuesday for $13 million in the gruesome case of a dog that mauled and disfigured his housekeeper at his home in 2020.

At the end of a two-week trial, the verdict went strongly in favor of Maria Avila, who was viciously attacked by Hades, a 200-pound Caucasian shepherd owned by Brown, while emptying trash outside the singer’s Tarzana, California house.

Billboard was first to report the verdict Tuesday. According to what her attorney, Michael C. Murphy Jr., told the publication, Brown and his company, Black Pyramid LLC, are on the hook to pay $12.9 million to Maria Avila for negligence. That’s not all they owe. Avila’s sister, Patricia Avila, who was also on the job when the mauling took place, was awarded $885,000 for emotional distress, and Maria Avila’s husband, Oscar Olivo, was separately awarded $50,000.

Murphy and a rep for Brown did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment. Murphy told Billboard, “After more than five years of litigating against Chris Brown, we are thrilled that we were able to get justice for our client, Patricia. We are so happy for her and her family after everything they went through on that horrible day. It was an honor to represent her.”

Brown had claimed that the dog was kept for security purposes and was not his personal pet. Jurors may have been swayed by testimony that indicated that, rather than call 911 himself or attend to Avila, Brown fled the bloody scene and drove around for hours while leaving those duties to employees, saying that he was afraid there would be a “media circus” if his voice were heard on the call or if he were around when police arrived.

The singer had admitted some culpability before the trial began, but testified in court that he had warned Avila and her sister about the dogs and told them only to go outside in the presence of security. The two housekeepers denied having such a conversation with Brown, noting language differences would have made such a discussion unlikely.

The verdict in the Van Nuys courtroom arrived four days after Brown began a co-headlining tour with Usher that will play in stadiums across the U.S. this summer, including two nights at L.A.’s SoFi Stadium in September.

Maria Avila offered tearful recollections of the traumatic incident and her less-than-full recovery on the stand last week, speaking in Spanish with an interpreter. According to an account of her testimony in Rolling Stone, Avila was left with severe scarring on her face and left arm, with limited mobility after surgeons grafted skin from her abdomen to repair her arm. She has not been able to return to work as a housekeeper, it was stated in testimony, because of lacking the arm strength to carry out the job, as well as post-traumatic stress that keeps her from being able to be around dogs kept by clients as pets. Rolling Stone reported that she walked to the jury box to show “a pattern of scars running from beneath her left eye up across her forehead” as well as the “raised and pitted skin” on her forearm.

“She’s not the same,” Avila’s daughter, Yoseline Espinozashe, testified about her mother, per Rolling Stone. “She used to have a spark in her. She always dressed up, had her makeup done, her hair done, everything. Now she doesn’t take the time to do that.. Her personality has changed… She doesn’t like going out anymore. She doesn’t even like to be in public settings. She doesn’t like pictures. She doesn’t like family outings. She doesn’t want people to see her face.”

Brown testified that he had been about to shower when he heard the dog growling and rushed down to find Avila lying motionless amid “a lot of blood” from the attack. “The blood kind of freaked me out,” he said, recalling the sight when Avila was able to roll over. “I’m in shock,” he said, according to Rolling Stone, explaining why he followed his manager’s advice to leave the scene before first responders arrived.

Prior to the trial beginning, the judge agreed that questions about Brown’s felony conviction for his 2009 assault on then-girlfriend Rihanna would be barred from testimony.