Chris Brown has been ordered to hand over a share of his tour income and royalties to his former housekeeper, after a Los Angeles judge granted her request to collect the multimillion dollar judgment she won against him, according to court documents obtained by TMZ.
Brown objected to the request. The judge granted it anyway. It is not yet clear whether he will ask for reconsideration or appeal.
The mechanism here is worth understanding, because winning a lawsuit and actually getting paid are two completely different things. A jury verdict is a piece of paper. If the person who owes the money does not write a check, the winner has to go back to court and chase it. What Maria Avila asked for is called an assignment order, and it lets her intercept money owed to Brown before it ever reaches his accounts. Instead of waiting on him, the income gets rerouted at the source until the debt is paid off.
She asked for it because, according to her filings, nothing was happening. Avila told the court Brown had made no effort to satisfy any portion of the judgment, and her attorney, Nancy Doumanian, said repeated attempts to reach his legal team about payment went unanswered. All of that was happening while Brown was in the middle of a co-headlining stadium run with Usher spanning more than 30 cities across North America.
The judgment goes back to December 12, 2020. Avila and her sister were working as housekeepers at Brown’s home in Tarzana, California. She stepped outside to empty trash and was attacked by Hades, a Caucasian shepherd that weighed roughly 200 pounds.
Her injuries were severe. She spent five days in the hospital, where pandemic restrictions kept her family from visiting. Doctors grafted skin from her abdomen onto her arm, and she needed dozens of stitches in her face. She testified about permanent scarring and post traumatic stress, telling jurors she would never be the same.
After a two week trial, a Los Angeles jury sided with her on June 30, finding Brown and his company Black Pyramid LLC liable. Avila was awarded roughly $12.9 million. Her sister Patricia received $885,000 for emotional distress, and her husband Oscar Olivo received $50,000, bringing the combined verdict to about $13.8 million.
Brown had denied wrongdoing and argued that Avila provoked the dog. By the time of trial his position had shifted somewhat, accepting partial responsibility for negligence while disputing how serious her injuries actually were. He also testified that he did not call 911 after the attack because he was worried the call would leak.
The jury did not go for it. Neither, as of this week, did the judge.
