$34.4 Million Verdict for a Woman Whose Skull and Jaw Were Fractured When She Stepped In to Stop Four Men Beating a Photographer Outside a West Hollywood Restaurant

On the night of April 16, 2015, Matthew Greene, who owned a restaurant and bar, had been touring other restaurants with two work associates, Jeremy Findel and Marianne Hagstrom, to research his bar menu, and they ended the night on the patio of the Nice Guy, a restaurant and lounge at 401 North La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood. His sister Anne Greene, a model and actress, joined them.

At about 1:30 a.m. on April 17 a commotion broke out outside. Four men who had been drinking at the restaurant, twin brothers Maurice and Alberto Driz, who then co-owned a group of Blaze Pizza franchises, Maurice's son Shawn Driz, and a family friend, William Joelson, were berating a valet, then turned on two photographers, one of them a TMZ paparazzo. Anne Greene went over to stop it. Her brother and Findel followed to help.

The four men attacked them. Anne Greene was punched in the head from behind and knocked unconscious, and a woman in her group dragged her out of the way while the men turned on her brother and Findel. The plaintiffs' evidence was that none of the three ever threw a punch.

Anne Greene's injuries were the worst of the three. Her skull was fractured, her jaw was broken, and she suffered a traumatic brain injury that her lawyers said ended her career. The brain injury and the assault left her with post-traumatic stress disorder; at trial, six years later, she cried on the witness stand, and her lawyer told the jury she now finds it hard to have relationships with men. Her brother's spine was fractured, and Findel suffered a concussion and hearing loss.

The siblings sued in December 2016 in Los Angeles Superior Court, with Findel as a co-plaintiff represented by separate counsel. The defendants' lawyer filed papers claiming the Greenes had been the aggressors, then was relieved as counsel in December 2019, and all four defendants represented themselves at trial. By the plaintiffs' account, Shawn Driz filed a Chapter 7 petition the evening before trial to freeze the case; the bankruptcy court lifted the stay.

Christopher V. Bulone and Terry J. Cole of Dordick Law Corporation tried the case for Anne and Matthew Greene before Judge Susan Bryant-Deason, with John Kristensen of Kristensen Law representing Findel. The trial ran three weeks. The defendants told the jury they had been attacked first and had acted only in self-defense, and that none of them was responsible for any blow that landed on Anne Greene. In closing, Bulone told the jurors that each of the four men had lied to their faces. Joelson, by the plaintiffs' account, denied kicking a victim, then conceded on video evidence that his testimony was false.

On Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the jury found for the plaintiffs and awarded compensatory damages of about $40 million across the three: $20.1 million to Anne Greene, $17.9 million to Matthew Greene, and $2.1 million to Findel. It also found that the defendants had acted with malice, which opened a second phase on punitive damages. After about a day of deliberation, on Thursday, July 29, the jury assessed punitive damages plaintiff by plaintiff and defendant by defendant. For Anne Greene: $5.8 million against Maurice Driz, $4.8 million against Alberto Driz, $2.3 million against Shawn Driz, and $1.4 million against Joelson, a total of about $14.3 million. Her total award was roughly $34.4 million. The two siblings' combined verdict was $72,645,492, which the firm described as the largest on record for injuries that are predominantly post-traumatic stress; Findel's separate award was $8.9 million.

The judgment is final. Collecting it is another matter. The plaintiffs say that as of 2026 they have not been paid a penny and, with interest at California's statutory 10 percent, put the debt at roughly $122 million. The Greenes have sued to unwind Alberto Driz's transfer of his 49 percent stake in the family's Blaze Pizza holding company, made two days after they filed suit in 2016, and a judge has allowed that fraudulent-transfer case to proceed. Debtor examinations and levy fights were still running in late 2026.