Chris Brown is dealing with a hefty legal challenge amid his “R&B” tour, and he won’t be backing down from it until a court says otherwise. He and his legal team continue to challenge a $12.9 million judgement against him for his dog attacking his former housekeeper Maria Avila back in 2020. While the specific nature of this challenge wasn’t specifically clear previously, Brown’s lawyers reportedly accused Avila’s lawyer of tainting the jury by bringing Rihanna and his assault of her to light during the trial.

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According to court documents reviewed by Complex, the defense team filed a motion on Monday (August 10) to overturn the verdict and form a new trial with a different jury. At the center of the motion is a question during cross-examination in court from the housekeeper’s attorney, who asked Breezy if he was a person with a history of felony convictions.

He said he was, referencing his guilty plea to felony assault against Rihanna back in 2009. The singer’s lawyers claimed the question was “inherently inflammatory” and tainted the jury, arguing the court did not mitigate any potential prejudicial impact in the face of harder evidence.

“Mr. Brown’s conduct in an unrelated domestic-violence matter 17 years prior had no bearing on Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries, causation or damages,” the lawyers reportedly wrote in the filing. “The jury was affirmatively told that the conviction could be used to determine whether Mr. Brown was believable. Thus… it was expressly authorized to discount Mr. Brown’s testimony based upon a 17-year-old crime of violence having no direct relationship to honesty or veracity.”

This follows his legal team’s attempts to exclude mention of the conviction before trial. In California, evidence rules allow for felony convictions to be relevant for impeachment, but a court must meet a middle ground separating prejudice from proof.

Avila’s attorney Nancy Doumanian responded to this challenge in an interview with Billboard. “You can’t hit the reset button every time a jury holds you accountable,” she reportedly stated. “The evidence was overwhelming, the jury got it right, and we’re confident this motion will meet the same fate as the defense did at trial.”