American R&B singer Chris Brown has been ordered by a California court to pay nearly $13 million in damages to his former housekeeper, Maria Avila, after she was severely injured in a dog attack at his Los Angeles-area home. The verdict was delivered on Tuesday, June 30, following a two-week trial in which a jury found Brown and his company, Black Pyramid LLC, liable for negligence over the December 2020 incident.
According to court proceedings, Avila was attacked by Hades, a 200-pound Caucasian shepherd kept on Brown’s Tarzana, California, property, while she was taking out the trash. The attack left her with serious injuries.
Avila was awarded $12.9 million in damages. In addition, her sister, Patricia Avila, who witnessed the attack while working at the property, received $885,000 for emotional distress.
Maria Avila’s husband, Oscar Olivo, was also awarded $50,000. Speaking after the ruling, the family’s attorney, Michael C. Murphy Jr., expressed satisfaction with the outcome, saying the verdict brought justice after more than five years of legal proceedings.
Brown maintained during the trial that the dog was kept strictly for security purposes and was not his personal pet. However, testimony presented in court alleged that after the attack, the singer left the scene instead of assisting the victim or calling emergency services.
According to evidence heard by the jury, Brown drove around for several hours while members of his staff contacted emergency responders and attended to the injured housekeeper. Brown told the court he stayed away because he feared his presence would trigger intense media attention if he appeared at the scene or spoke during the emergency call. Before the trial, Brown acknowledged some responsibility for the incident.
He also testified that he had warned Maria Avila and her sister not to enter certain outdoor areas unless accompanied by security personnel because of the dogs on the property. The two sisters disputed that claim, telling the court they never received such a warning and suggesting language barriers would have made such a conversation unlikely.
The ruling comes just days after Brown launched a co-headlining stadium tour across the United States with fellow R&B star Usher