LOS ANGELES — US singer Chris Brown has been found liable for a dog attack that left his housekeeper mauled and disfigured at his home in 2020.
Following a two-week trial in Los Angeles, the jury found in favour of Maria Avila, who was attacked by a 200lb, 90kg, Caucasian shepherd owned by Brown while she was emptying the rubbish at his house in Tarzana, California. Brown and his company Black Pyramid LLC must now pay her $12.9m, £9.7m, for negligence, according to US publication Billboard. BBC News has contacted representatives for Brown for comment.
Avila said the dog, named Hades, ripped off “large chunks of her skin”, which subsequently led to “permanent facial disfigurement, scarring, vision loss and nerve damage”. Brown had claimed that the dog was kept for security purposes and was not his personal pet.
During the trial, the jury heard testimony that indicated that, instead of calling the emergency services or attending to Avila himself, Brown fled the scene following the attack, Rolling Stone reported. The jury heard that he left his employees to care for Avila, saying he feared there would be a “media circus” if his voice was heard on the 911 call or was present when police arrived.
*‘A lot of blood’*
Brown said he had been about to shower when he heard the dog growling, and went downstairs to find Avila lying motionless and covered in “a lot of blood”. “The blood kind of freaked me out,” he said, adding that he was “in shock” when he followed his manager’s advice to leave the scene before emergency services arrived.
Brown admitted some culpability before the trial began, but he disputed the extent of Avila’s injuries and argued that she was partially at fault for the incident. The singer said he had warned Avila and her sister Patricia, who was also working when the attack took place, that the dogs were “absolutely not” friendly and told them only to go outside when security were present. The two housekeepers denied that conversation with Brown took place, and said the language barrier would have made such a discussion unlikely.
Brown said the dog was purchased and looked after by his security guards to help protect the house from break-ins, telling the jury: “I get a lot of stalker-type situations.”
Speaking in Spanish with an interpreter, Avila told the court she was left with “severe scarring on her face and left arm, as well as limited mobility” after surgeons grafted skin from her abdomen to repair her arm. _Rolling Stone_ reported that she showed the jury “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 stated in testimony that she had not been able to return to work as a housekeeper because of a lack in arm strength, as well as post-traumatic stress that prevents her being around dogs.
A further $885,000, £668,000, has been awarded to Patricia, while Maria’s husband Oscar Olivo was separately awarded $50,000, £38,000, Patricia’s lawyer Michael C 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,” he said. “We are so happy for her and her family after everything they went through on that horrible day.” Representatives for Maria Avila and Oscar Olivo have not yet commented.
Brown is currently on tour in the US with R&B singer Usher. Brown is scheduled to face trial in the UK in October over an alleged attack on a music producer with a bottle in a nightclub in 2023. He appeared in court in the UK in January alongside co-defendant Omololu Akinlolu. The pair were granted bail.