Legal Blog: Bobbi Kristina Brown Lawsuit Amended to Include Wrongful Death Claim Against Nick Gordon — Court Docs Enclosed

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings,” noted renowned editor Horace Greeley. This quote seems to succinctly describe the tragedy that befell a musical family festooned with fortune and fame. (Bobbi Kristina Brown’s mother, Whitney Houston, drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub at age 48. Houston’s daughter with R&B singer Bobby Brown was buried beside her on August 3.)

Nick Gordon’s violent attack on Bobbi Kristina Brown caused her to sustain a profound brain injury, which ultimately caused her death and for which Defendant Nick Gordon is liable. That is the position taken by Bedelia C. Hargrove, Bobbi Kristina Brown’s conservator. (Bobbi Kristina Brown was placed in a medically induced coma after she was found unresponsive in the bathtub of her townhome in Roswell, Georgia on January 31. Later, Bobbi Kristina was diagnosed with global and irreversible brain damage. Bobbi Kristina never regained consciousness and was moved to hospice care in June.)

Bobbi Kristina Brown’s court-appointed conservator, Bedelia Hargrove, filed a lawsuit on June 24 in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta. It accused Nick Gordon of assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and transferring money from her account into his own without authorization, i.e., financial impropriety and physical harm. The lawsuit asks for damages of at least $10 million each for the assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conversion claims.

READ: Legal Blog: Bobbi Kristina Brown’s Conservator Sues Nick Gordon For $10 Million…District Attorney Has Yet To File Charges

Once Bobbi Kristina passed on July 26, the accusations leveled against her purported beau and longtime family friend Nick Gordon increased considerably. “As Defendant’s wrongful and tortious conduct was a cause-in-fact and proximate cause of Bobbi Kristina’s injuries and death, Plaintiff is entitled to recover the full value of Bobbi Kristina Brown’s life, as shown by the evidence,” states the amended complaint.

READ: Nick Gordan_Amended Complaint_Civil Action

Ms. Hargrove, an Atlanta attorney, amended the complaint on August 7 to add a wrongful death count, saying: 

“Consistent with and to the letter of the civil action I initially filed on behalf of Bobbi Kristina, we will continue to pursue justice for her. I have filed today an amended complaint against Nicholas Gordon adding a count for wrongful death and for pain and suffering.”

In the 12-page amended complaint, the estate accuses Nick of fighting with his live-in girlfriend on January 31, calling her a “whore” and a “bitch” and accusing her of cheating, before giving her a “toxic cocktail rendering her unconscious,” after which he “put her face down in a tub of cold water causing her to suffer brain damage.”

Wrongful death lawsuits seek to hold another party liable for a preventable loss of life. A claim may be brought against any entity whose carelessness resulted in another’s death. Georgia wrongful death laws are constructed so that a victim’s family can seek compensation and regain financial stability following a sudden accident.

In a Georgia wrongful death lawsuit, survivors of the victim may be able to pursue compensation for medical bills, funeral expenses, and punitive damages. Punitive damages are available if the offending party broke the law during the act of wrongful death and serve as punishment for acutely egregious behavior.

In this instance, the complaint avers, “Plaintiff incurred medical attention, hospitalization expenses and funeral expenses.”  Moreover, at the time of her death, Bobbi Kristina was only 22-years-old and had a reasonable life expectancy, as well as reasonable work life expectancy. As a result of Nick’s supposed wrongful and tortious conduct, the argument is that he should be held liable for all of Bobbi Kristina’s economic losses, including loss of income and other economic loss. Plaintiff maintains it is “entitled to an award of punitive damages in the amount of at least ten million dollars ($10,000,000.00).”

According to the Plaintiff, the following incidences led to Bobbi Kristina’s death:

• Only days before January 31, 2015, witnesses were present for an altercation in which Defendant lunged onto Bobbi Kristina while she sat on the living room couch, hitting her so hard in the face that the couch broke, knocking her to the floor, and Defendant continued to beat her in the face until she was bloody. Afterwards, he began kicking Bobbi Kristina in the side to the point that she was on the floor screaming and curled up in a fetal position.

• Defendant then dragged her upstairs by her hair in the master bedroom, leaving blood on the walls of the staircase.  Afterward, Defendant stated to persons present, “I don’t do this often,” indicating that this was not the first time Defendant beat her.

• At approximately 6:00 a.m., on the morning of January 31, 2015, after Defendant returned from being out all-night, he reviewed camera footage of Bobbi Kristina and listened to her conversations.  Defendant and Bobbi Kristina then became embroiled in a loud argument, which began in the kitchen, then moved to the living room, and finally upstairs in the master bedroom.

• Defendant screamed at Bobbi Kristina accusing her of cheating. The argument lasted for about thirty minutes and then everything abruptly became quiet. 

• Upon information and belief, Defendant gave Bobbi Kristina a toxic cocktail rendering her unconscious and then put her face down in a tub of cold water causing her to suffer brain damage.

• Defendant then came out of the master bedroom wearing a different set of clothing than he was wearing prior to his argument with Bobbi Kristina.

• Afterward he got in bed, and laid his head on a female guest’s ankle and stated, “Now I want a pretty little white girl like you.”

• Approximately fifteen minutes later, a person present at the townhome went into the master bedroom to check on Bobbi Kristina and found her face down in the tub. Bobbi Kristina was unresponsive, her mouth swollen, and another tooth was hanging loosely from her mouth.

• When the Defendant came into the master bedroom, the very first thing Defendant did was let the cold water out of the bathtub and later shouted, “Clean up, clean up.” 

• Others began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to no avail. Defendant then began to slap her saying, “wake up,” and also started performing CPR between slaps.

The allegations in the amended complaint are damning. Lawyers are ethically prohibited from making claims in a lawsuit unless they have support. The estate cites “Upon information and belief,” claiming to know what transpired but the amended complaint is not entirely specific about dates, times, and “persons” who witnessed the abuse or could corroborate the allegations set forth in the four corners of the August 7 filing. 

The amended complaint could arguably be described as extremely “bare bones.” There is no specific information as to what the toxic cocktail contained, which is something Plaintiff would be privy to after receiving the medical examiner’s report and toxicology reports. It is not my ultimate determination that the complaint against Mr. Gordon is fragile but perhaps it could have gone further to establish wrongful death/assault. 

No criminal charges have been filed against Nick. Authorities are allegedly still investigating her death. An initial autopsy showed no obvious cause of death and no significant injuries or medical conditions that could have caused Bobbi Kristina’s death. The criminal case seems stalled. What do you make of the fact that the district attorney’s office has not filed charges against Mr. Gordon? 

This civil suit could be an effort by the family to embolden criminal proceedings or collect witness testimony and other evidence to hand over to the prosecutor. Nick must respond to the allegations lodged against him however I caution readers that the potential treasure trove of useful intelligence derived from this civil suit could be quite limited. 

The Fifth Amendment privilege “can be asserted in any proceeding, civil or criminal, administrative or judicial, investigatory or adjudicatory.” Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 445 (1972). In McCarthy v. Arndstein, 266 U.S. 34 (1924), the U.S. Supreme Court held the privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment “applies alike to civil and criminal proceedings, wherever the answer might tend to subject to criminal responsibility him who gives it.”  The protection extends equally to civil proceedings because the nature of the protection goes to the questions asked, not the proceeding itself.

A spokesperson for Nick Gordon’s new defense lawyer, Jose Baez, who successfully defended Casey Anthony on murder charges in connection with the death of her young daughter, told USA TODAY the lawsuit is “slanderous and meritless.” The spokesperson explained, “Nick…intends to defend the lawsuit vigorously and expose it for what it is: a fictitious assault against the person who loved Krissy most.”

Grab your gavel, join the conversation, and let us know whether you think Nick Gordon should be held civilly and/or criminally liable for the death of Bobbi Kristina Brown.

 

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