A judge in Atlanta has ordered Nick Gordon to pay $36m in the wrongful death case concerning Bobbi Kristina Brown, Gordon’s partner and the daughter of Whitney Houston, lawyers said.

Brown, the daughter of singers Houston and Bobby Brown, was found face down and unresponsive in a bathtub in her suburban Atlanta, Georgia home in January 2015.

She was in a coma for six months before dying in hospice care aged 22.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford ruled in September that Gordon repeatedly failed to meet court deadlines in the case.

His order said that meant the conservator of her estate wins by default.

The estate’s lawyers said in an emailed statement that Judge Bedford on Thursday awarded damages of $36,250,000.

Gordon was not in court on Thursday. He has not been criminally charged over Brown’s death.

AP