Chris Brown challenges $13 million verdict, citing a Rihanna mention in court

Chris Brown is challenging a $12.9 million verdict awarded to his former housekeeper, Maria Avila, after his dog attacked her in 2020, HotNewHipHop reported on August 15. His lawyers filed a motion on August 10 seeking to overturn the verdict and seat a new jury, arguing that a courtroom question about his history of felony convictions was inflammatory and swayed the jury against him.

The question came during cross-examination, when Avila's attorney asked Brown whether he had a history of felony convictions. He said he did, referencing his 2009 guilty plea for assaulting Rihanna. In the new filing, Brown's lawyers wrote that "Mr. Brown's conduct in an unrelated domestic-violence matter 17 years prior had no bearing on Plaintiffs' alleged injuries, causation or damages."

Avila's attorney, Nancy Doumanian, rejected the challenge in comments to Billboard: "You can't hit the reset button every time a jury holds you accountable." She said the evidence at trial was overwhelming and that she expects the new-trial motion to fail the same way Brown's defense did at trial.

The filing follows an earlier motion from Brown's team seeking to block Avila from collecting the judgment through his earnings from his ongoing R&B tour with Usher, arguing her request for his present and future income was overly broad. That tour has since added dates and crossed $100 million at the box office.

Brown's team is also seeking a new trial on separate grounds, including claimed jury misconduct and procedural irregularities. A hearing on the case is set for September 22.

Brown faces a second legal matter at the same time: he pleaded guilty to one count of affray over a 2025 London nightclub bottle assault, and a court is due to hand down sentencing in October. Affray carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison, keeping Brown's R&B and soul career under a legal cloud even as the tour keeps selling out.