A Los Angeles jury on Tuesday found Chris Brown liable for a $13 million verdict in a dog mauling case tied to an attack on his housekeeper at his Tarzana home in 2020. The panel’s decision ends a two-week trial with a major civil judgment against Brown and Black Pyramid LLC.
The money was not a single lump sum for one person. Michael C. Murphy Jr. said Brown and Black Pyramid LLC were on the hook for $12.9 million in negligence damages to Maria Avila, while Patricia Avila was awarded $885,000 for emotional distress and Oscar Olivo $50,000. Brown had begun a co-headlining tour with Usher four days before the verdict arrived in the Van Nuys courtroom, adding pressure to a case that had already stretched on for more than five years.
Avila told jurors she was attacked by Hades, a 200-pound Caucasian shepherd owned by Brown, while she was emptying trash outside the house. She testified in Spanish with an interpreter and said the attack left her with severe scarring on her face and left arm. Testimony also said surgeons grafted skin from her abdomen to repair her arm, leaving her with limited mobility and unable to return to work as a housekeeper because of lacking arm strength and post-traumatic stress.
The case turned on a clash over warning and responsibility. Brown testified that he kept the dogs for security and told the housekeepers to go outside only with security, but Maria Avila and Patricia Avila denied that conversation ever happened. Brown had admitted some culpability before trial, yet the jury still found negligence strong enough to justify the full award, which shows it accepted that the risks at the house were not handled the way Brown said they were.
The verdict now leaves Brown and Black Pyramid LLC facing a large judgment tied to a 2020 attack that jurors said should have been prevented. The remaining question is not whether liability was found, but whether the payment order becomes the final bill for a case that has already followed Brown for years.
