Judge Awards $36M Damages in Bobbi Kristina Death Suit

Boyfriend Nick Gordon was held responsible for her death in September
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 17, 2016 5:03 PM CST
Boyfriend Ordered to Pay $36M Damages in Bobbi Kristina Suit
In this Aug. 16, 2012, file photo, Bobbi Kristina Brown attends the Los Angeles premiere of "Sparkle" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.   (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

A judge in Atlanta on Thursday ordered Bobbi Kristina Brown's partner, Nick Gordon, to pay $36 million in a wrongful death case, her estate's lawyers said. Brown, the daughter of singers Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, was found face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub in her suburban Atlanta townhome in January 2015. Gordon, who also lived there, and a friend were listed on the police report as being in the home when investigators arrived there. She was in a coma for six months before dying in hospice care at age 22 on July 26, 2015. Gordon was held legally responsible for her death in September. Investigators with the medical examiner's office were unable to determine exactly how Brown had died. An autopsy showed she had morphine, cocaine, alcohol, and prescription drugs in her body. But the medical examiner couldn't determine if she killed herself, if someone else killed her, or if her death was accidental.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford ruled in September that Gordon repeatedly failed to meet court deadlines in the civil suit. His order said that means the conservator of her estate wins by default. Bedford on Thursday awarded damages of $36,250,000, the AP reports. Bobby Brown and his daughter, LaPrincia Brown, Bobbi Kristina Brown's half-sister, were among the witnesses who testified at Thursday's hearing. The young woman's family blamed Gordon, accusing him in the lawsuit of giving Brown a "toxic cocktail" before putting her face-down in the water. Gordon, an orphan three years older whom Houston had raised as her own, has not been charged with a crime. Brown had referred to Gordon as her husband. (More Bobbi Kristina Brown stories.)

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