In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announces a $41.5 million settlement of one Harrison County state court lawsuit against pharmaceutical industry defendants and files another in the same venue, and a fraternity at the University of Texas at Austin draws a wrongful death lawsuit in the wake of a freshman’s death by suicide.
The Litigation Roundup is a weekly feature highlighting the work Texas lawyers are doing inside and outside the state. Have a development we should include next week? Please let us know at tlblitigation@texaslawbook.net.
Travis County District Court
UT Austin Fraternity Hit with Wrongful Death Suit
The parents of an 18-year-old University of Texas at Austin freshman who died by suicide in January 2024 have filed a lawsuit against his fraternity in state court, alleging he endured severe hazing that “led to a psychological crisis that ended in suicide.”
The lawsuit, seeking more than $1 million in damages, was filed by Sheryl Roberts-Updike and Lee J. Updike on behalf of their son, Sawyer Updike, on Nov. 20. Named as defendants are the Sigma Chi International Fraternity, Alpha Nu Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity at the University of Texas at Austin, Alpha Nu House Corporation and five individual defendants.
“The hazing not only scarred Sawyer physically, but also caused him severe psychological and emotional distress,” the lawsuit alleges. “It was the combination of demeaning and cruel hazing and the introduction (forced providing) of illegal drugs which led to psychological crisis that ended in suicide.”
The lawsuit claims that at the time of the alleged hazing of Sawyer Updike, the fraternity was on probation for hazing pledges a year earlier.
According to the lawsuit, Sawyer Updike pledged Sigma Chi in the fall of 2023 and soon thereafter endured a series of hazing events, including:
- Spearing a large fishhook through his leg,
- Repeatedly burning him with cigarettes,
- Coercion and pressure to use illegal drugs, including cocaine,
- Sleep deprivation,
- Whippings and beatings,
- Piercing his hip with a staple gun, and
- Forced binge drinking
By January, according to the lawsuit, Sawyer Updike’s “mental state was in jeopardy and deteriorating.” On Jan. 16, 2024, the lawsuit alleges he ingested cocaine and psilocybin mushrooms at the fraternity house.
“A short time later, Sawyer, suffering from the effects of those substances, which exacerbated his worsening psychological crisis, drove to a nearby convenience store parking lot, where he would tragically die by suicide,” the lawsuit reads.
The case has been assigned to Travis County District Judge Sandra Avila Ramirez.
The family is represented by Ted B. Lyon of Ted B. Lyon & Associates, Douglas E. Fierberg and Jonathon N. Fazzola of The Fierberg National Law Group and William W. Johnston of Loncar Lyon Jenkins.
The case number is D-1-GN-25-010285.
Harrison County District Court
Texas Secures $41.5M Settlement in Suit Against Pfizer, Tris Pharma
The state of Texas, Pfizer Inc. and Tris Pharma told a judge in Harrison County Nov. 20 they had reached a settlement agreement that resolves the litigation where the state accused the defendants of making false statements to Texas Medicaid regarding the performance of a medication used to treat children for attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder in violation of the Texas Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act.
The lawsuit was brought by New Jersey resident Tarik Ahmed on behalf of the state of Texas in October 2023. Ahmed served as the head of technology for Tris from 2013 until June 2017. Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a press release announcing the $41.5 million settlement last week.
“I will never back down from taking on the biggest corporations in the world that deceive and take advantage of Texans,” Paxton said in a statement. “Pfizer and Tris Pharma provided adulterated drugs to children for years and changed test results in order to obtain the benefit of taxpayer-funded Medicaid reimbursement.”
The lawsuit alleged that Pfizer and Tris knew the drug Quillivant XR repeatedly failed quality control tests but that Tris altered testing methods between 2012 and 2018 in violation of the law so it would pass regulatory hurdles, continue to be prescribed to children and net the companies Medicaid reimbursements. Many parents reported the drug did not work, according to the lawsuit.
Harrison County District Judge Brad Morin presided over the case.
Texas is represented by Paige L. Cheung, Nadia Burns and Vivian I. Egbu of the attorney general’s office.
Ahmed is represented by Jason T. Brown and Patrick S. Almonrode of Brown LLC and Michael E. Jones and E. Glenn Thames Jr. of Potter Minton.
Pfizer is represented by George “Val” Jones of The Val Jones Law Firm, Edward “Ed” Burbach of Foley & Lardner and Samantha Badlan and Stefan P. Schropp of Ropes & Gray.
Tris Pharma is represented by Harry “Gil” Gillam Jr. and Tom Gorham of Gillam & Smith and William E. Lawler III, Bobbye Pyke and Huaou Yan of Blank Rome.
The case number is 23-1031.
AG Paxton Hires Outside Counsel for Suit against Pharmaceutical Companies
Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in Harrison County Thursday against pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb for allegedly failing to disclose that their drug Plavix did not work effectively for certain patients.
“It’s despicable how Big Pharma puts lives at risk by refusing to be honest with patients,” Paxton said in a news release. “We are going to make Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb pay a heavy cost for their utter lack of regard or concern for Americans and the company’s clear violations of Texas law. Every healthcare and pharmaceutical company should be put on notice that anyone who endangers the health of Americans absolutely will be held accountable.”
Plavix is intended to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots by stopping platelets in the blood from clumping together.
The lawsuit claims the pharmaceutical companies made billions off of Plavix by falsely marketing its product as effective and hiding information that showed its diminished performance in patients.
The suit alleges Sanofi violated Texas’s Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act and consumer protection laws.
Paxton hired McKool Smith and the Lanier Law Firm to represent the state in the suit.
“The defendants promoted a medication that was supposed to save lives. In truth, however, Plavix provided no therapeutic benefits to many patients, including patients who had the highest risk of cardiovascular disease and death,” McKool Smith principal Radu Lelutiu said in a news release. “This lawsuit marks an important step towards accountability. It is a privilege to represent the State of Texas in this important case.”
Mark Lanier of The Lanier Law Firm said Texans’ “trust was betrayed.”
“For over a decade, these pharmaceutical companies put profits over people,” Lanier said in a news release. “They knew Plavix didn’t work for many patients — especially minority patients who already face disproportionate risks of heart disease and stroke — but defendants hid that information to protect their bottom line.”
Lanier’s team includes managing attorney Alex Brown and senior attorney Zeke DeRose III.
“This case is about more than financial fraud, though billions of taxpayer dollars were wasted and fraudulently paid,”Brown said in the news release. “This is about pharmaceutical companies deliberately putting vulnerable Texans at risk. When you’re a heart attack survivor, you trust that your medication will protect you. For hundreds of thousands of Texans, Plavix was little more than a placebo.”
The McKool Smith team includes principals Jennifer Truelove, Rick Halper, John Briody, Rachael Jones, and Sam Baxter and senior counsel Ayana Rivers.
Counsel for the pharmaceutical companies had not filed appearances as of Monday.
This is not the first time this year that the two firms have been hired by the attorney general to represent the state.
The firms are representing the state and Health Choice Alliance in its suit against Eli Lilly & Company for allegedly bribing and illegally inducing medical providers to prescribe its most profitable drugs, including the high-demand GLP-1 medications Mounjaro and Zepbound that are used for weight loss and diabetes treatment.
A hearing on Eli Lilly’s motion to transfer to Travis County is scheduled for 3 p.m. Dec. 17 in Harrison County.
The case number is 25-1001.
Alexa Shrake contributed to this report.
Eastern District of Texas
Panini America Hires Troutman Pepper in Trading Card Monopoly Suit
The law firm Troutman Pepper Locke will be defending Irving-based trading card company Panini America Inc. against claims it is operating or attempting to operate a monopoly.
Tennessee-based Wild Card, which has hired Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann to pursue the claims, alleges in a lawsuit filed Nov. 6 that Panini weaponized its dominance in the market “to choke off Wild Card’s emergent trading-card brand.”
Wild Card told the court that after its debut in 2021, the company “achieved immediate success” and “entered the premium market as a serious competitor capable of challenging Panini’s dominance.”
At a closed-door annual meeting in October 2021, told its distributors that it required loyalty and that carrying any Wild Card products would carry consequences, the plaintiff claims. Within three weeks of that meeting, four major card distributors “abruptly reversed course and refused further Wild Card allocations,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit is seeking trebled damages, an injunction that would prohibit Panini from conditioning its allocations on refusal to carry Wild Card products and a final judgment that would require the company “to adopt neutral, written allocation criteria applicable to all distributors,” among other relief.
Panini filed an unopposed application this week for an extension to file its answer to the lawsuit, which will now be due Jan. 16.
Chief U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant has been assigned to the case.
Wild Card is represented by Chris Schwegmann, Chris Patton, Hayden G. Hanson and Shirley Xu of Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann.
Panini America is represented by Bradley Weber of Troutman Pepper Locke.
The case number is 4:25-cv-01216.
Fourteenth Court of Appeals, Houston
American Honda Motor Co. Gets New Trial in Case Over SUV Fire
A three-justice panel recently determined that America Honda Motor Co. is entitled to a new trial in a case where a jury had found it liable for damage to an apartment complex that was caused after a Honda CR-V caught fire in the parking lot.
A jury had awarded about $522,000 in damages to SFI 59, which does business as Briarwood Apartments, after finding that the fire was caused by a manufacturing defect in the CR-V and had caused damage to the apartment building.
On appeal, Honda argued it had “conclusively established” at trial that it didn’t manufacture the CR-V and that there was not enough evidence to support the judgment.
The justices disagreed with Honda on the proof regarding who manufactured the vehicle, but it said a new trial was still required in the case because the trial judge had allowed an expert for the apartment complex to testify about a “previously undisclosed opinion and the factual basis for that opinion.”
According to the opinion, prior to trial the expert said the fire originated in the CR-V’s power-distribution box but could not identify a specific manufacturing defect. But at trial, and despite Honda’s objections, the expert testified for the first time that a photograph of the engine depicted the defect: an improper high-resistance connection in the fuse box.
The justices wrote Honda “could not realistically have been expected to adequately review the photos and prepare expert rebuttal midtrial” and noted that when Honda filed its motion for a new trial, it argued that the photograph does not show an improper connection.
“Thus, American Honda could have offered a rebuttal, if [it] had not been deprived of the opportunity to do so,” the panel wrote. “Briarwood’s unfair surprise unfairly prejudiced American Honda.”
Chief Justice Tracy Christopher and Justices Ken Wise and Kevin Jewell sat on the panel.
Honda is represented by Ryan C. Bueché, Ben Zinnecker and Chris A. Blackerby of Germer Beaman & Brown.
Briarwood is represented by Adam Q. Voyles and McKenna Harper of Lubel Voyles and Byron C. Keeling and Anna E. Fredrickson of Keeling & Fredrickson.
The case number is 14-24-00469-CV.
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