Severely beaten L.A. man awarded $58M

A California jury has awarded nearly $58 million to a 43-year-old house painter left brain damaged and deformed after a security guard crushed his skull during a beating outside a Los Angeles-area bar.

"His skull is like a pie with 25% cut out of it," attorney Federico Sayre said at a news conference Monday.

Doctors had to removed part of Antonio Lopez Chaj's brain and skull after the April 2010 beating at La Barra Latina in Torrance. He can no longer speak, needs help walking and requires 24-hour care.

Sayre said an unlicensed, untrained security guard with DGSP Security and Patrol Service beat Chaj with a baton or metal bar, kicked him in the head eight times and bashed his skull on the pavement four times. Chaj was attacked after he tried to intervene in a fight between one of his two nephews and the bar manager.

The guard was never charged; police said they lacked independent witnesses. He and the bartender who started the fight disappeared before the civil trial.

The damage award against the security firm — $35 million for past pain and suffering, $11.5 million for future medical expenses and $11 million for future pain and suffering — is one of the largest ever given to an individual in California.

Chaj's lawyers, including the oldest son of the late farm workers' leader Cesar Chavez, expect the security firm to ask the judge to reduce the judgment.

"I have explained to him that he now is going to be taken care of the rest of his long life," Sayre said he told Chaj, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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