A California jury has delivered a stinging financial blow in the Grossman punitive damages case, ordering socialite Rebecca Grossman and former Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson to pay more than $22 million combined to the family of two young brothers killed in a 2020 crash. The decision adds a punishing final chapter to a civil trial that has gripped Southern California.

The Punitive Awards

On Wednesday, jurors ordered Grossman to pay $21 million in punitive damages and Erickson to pay $1.17 million to the family of the two boys fatally struck by Grossman’s car on a Westlake Village street in September 2020.

Notably, the awards came in slightly above what the family’s own attorney had requested. Brian J. Panish had urged jurors to assess $20 million against Grossman and $1 million against Erickson, but the panel chose to go higher.

The punitive phase followed an even larger earlier verdict. The same Van Nuys Superior Court jury had awarded the Iskander family $176 million in compensatory damages just last week. The jury also concluded that both Grossman and Erickson had acted with malice, a finding that triggered this additional round of deliberations beginning Tuesday.

The Tragedy at the Heart of the Case

The civil suit was brought by Nancy and Karim Iskander, along with their son Zachary. Filed in January 2021, the lawsuit alleged that Grossman and Erickson consumed cocktails on September 29, 2020, before engaging in a speed contest along Triunfo Canyon Road.

According to the suit, that race ended in horror. Grossman’s vehicle struck brothers Mark and Jacob Iskander, ages 11 and 8, in a crosswalk while traveling at roughly 80 mph in a 45 mph zone.

In his closing argument, Panish underscored the permanence of the family’s loss, telling jurors that their lives would never be the same. He went further in condemning the defendants, arguing that Erickson and Grossman deserved each other because they were the same kind of person.

The Defense Pushes Back

Attorneys for both Grossman and Erickson rejected the central claims, insisting their clients were neither impaired nor racing when the crash occurred.

Grossman’s attorney, Esther Holm, argued that a message had already been sent through the $176 million compensatory verdict handed down the previous week. She told jurors they did not need to impose punitive damages, characterizing the boys’ deaths as an unintended accident.

Allegations of a Cover-Up

The Iskander family’s attorneys painted a far darker picture in their court filings. They contended that the 62-year-old Grossman attempted to flee the scene and likely would have succeeded had her vehicle not automatically shut down after sensing the massive impact.

The attorneys further alleged that Grossman, a co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation, later lied to law enforcement about both her speed and how much she had been drinking. According to their filings, she claimed not to understand why her airbag deployed, despite the severe front-end damage to her vehicle. Throughout the proceedings, Grossman and Erickson have each blamed the other for striking the boys.

A Parallel Criminal Conviction

The civil case unfolded against the backdrop of Grossman’s existing criminal sentence. She is currently serving 15 years to life in prison following her conviction on February 23, 2024, on two counts each of second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, along with one count of hit-and-run driving.

Her efforts to overturn that conviction have repeatedly failed. In March, a panel of the Second District Court of Appeal upheld the verdict. On Wednesday, the same day as the punitive damages ruling, the state Supreme Court declined to hear her further appeal, effectively closing off her remaining legal options on the criminal side.

The Family Connection

The case also drew attention because of Grossman’s prominent family ties. Her husband, Dr. Peter Grossman, is a renowned plastic surgeon whose father, Dr. Richard Grossman, founded the Grossman Burn Center in West Hills. Peter Grossman is named as a defendant in the civil suit because he owned the car his wife was driving at the time of the crash.

A Measure of Accountability

For the Iskander family, the combined verdicts represent a sweeping legal victory, though one that can never restore what they lost. With nearly $200 million in total damages awarded and Grossman’s criminal appeals now exhausted, the long fight for accountability over the deaths of Mark and Jacob Iskander appears to be reaching its conclusion.

What remains is a sobering reminder of how a single reckless night can shatter lives and ripple through families and communities for years to come.