Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has urged limits on forum shopping at the federal level, but his office has since filed at least 30 cases in counties that critics describe as weakly connected to the underlying claims—kicking off renewed scrutiny in his Tylen
In a three-story courthouse in Carthage, Texas, where the county seat for Panola County sits on the Louisiana border, the fight over venue took center stage as much as Tylenol itself.
It was there. in October. that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office took its Tylenol lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson. Kenvue Brands and Kenvue Inc.—a case framed around claims that the pain relief drug was linked to autism and ADHD in children. Paxton repeated claims that had been made about Tylenol a month earlier by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Paxton accused drugmakers of marketing Tylenol to pregnant mothers without disclosing its dangers. writing in the state’s attorneys’ lawsuit that “The reckoning has arrived. ” and promising that “By holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people. we will help Make America Healthy Again.”.
At the hearing, the dispute wasn’t only about whether Tylenol is harmful. It also turned on who would decide—exactly which judge, which courtroom, which county.
The drugmakers’ attorney. Kim Bueno. accused Paxton’s office of pushing a baseless lawsuit through forum shopping. asking a jury and judge to respond to claims rather than file in the courts more accustomed to similar litigation. Bueno said the claims had been rejected repeatedly “by the same plaintiff’s counsel. ” and argued the case was “once again” trying to suggest Tylenol is harmful for women when pregnant.
Judge LeAnn Rafferty, a Republican first elected in 2016, did not question Paxton’s office on its venue choice. Instead. she asked a blunt question about the argument the state was making: “Do you disagree with the defendants’ assertion that Tylenol is the safest choice for pregnant women who have a fever?”.
J.J. Snidow, a partner at Keller Postman—the Chicago law firm Paxton hired to argue the case in state court—answered, “It depends on — oh, you said for having a fever? That probably is true,” adding that there are not alternatives in the pain relief space to Tylenol that do not also carry risks.
Rafferty said Tylenol makers already tell pregnant women to consult with a doctor before taking the drug, according to the hearing record described in the reporting. Rafferty declined to comment about the case. Snidow said Keller Postman had no comment.
The venue choice mattered anyway when the judge ruled.
Rafferty threw out five of the six claims in Paxton’s lawsuit. She dismissed one for insufficient evidence. In the other four, she ruled the state lacked jurisdiction over Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue Inc. because they do not manufacture or sell Tylenol in Texas. Rafferty did allow one claim to proceed: an allegation that Kenvue Brands violated the state’s consumer protection act by making false claims about Tylenol’s safety.
Faced with that setback, Paxton’s office did not step back. Two weeks later, it filed a new case—this time in Bailey County, a community of about 7,000 residents on the New Mexico border.
The pivot was immediate and tactical. In Bailey County. Paxton’s office sought to bar Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue from selling any products in Texas until they filed paperwork and paid a $750 fee to register with the secretary of state. The reporting described how Paxton’s office said it did not know the companies’ attorneys. so it could not notify them of the Panola County suit.
Judge Gordon Green, without hearing from the companies’ lawyers, ordered the companies to register, saying they could be barred from doing business in Texas if they did not. Paxton proclaimed the ruling a “major win” over Big Pharma.
That “win” lasted less than a week.
After the drugmakers’ lawyer Aaron Nielson—who had previously served under Paxton as the state’s solicitor general—attended a hearing in Green’s court. he accused Paxton’s office of “sleight of hand” by trying to relitigate claims that had already failed to persuade Rafferty in Panola County. Nielson. who did not respond to a request for comment. said the move was “blatant forum shopping and taking another bite at the apple. ” arguing Paxton’s office had decided to bring the matter to Green’s court instead of letting the Panola County process continue.
Green withdrew the order requiring the companies to register. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Both the Panola and Bailey County cases are awaiting a ruling from the 15th Court of Appeals.
The Tylenol litigation is only the latest entry in a broader pattern that critics say is hard to square with Paxton’s past stance.
Over the past nine years. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune identified at least 30 cases filed by Paxton’s office in counties with tenuous connections to where the alleged wrongdoing occurred. The reporting also described how Paxton’s earlier opposition to the practice contrasts sharply with what his office has been doing now.
In 2017, Paxton wrote a legal brief on behalf of 17 states urging the U.S. Supreme Court to crack down on forum shopping in federal courts. In that brief. Paxton warned that forum shopping “has the pernicious effect of reducing confidence in the fairness and neutrality of our Nation’s justice system.”.
Since then, the office’s filings have raised questions among legal scholars about what Paxton is actually willing to do when he thinks the venue will improve his chances.
One example raised in the reporting came from Paxton’s office stretching the boundaries of a consumer protection venue rule. Texas’ major consumer protection law gives the attorney general some flexibility because the office does not have to prove that a “substantial” part of events in a consumer protection case happened in the place where it files suit. Instead, the office can file in counties where a defendant has done business.
But experts and former staffers described how Paxton has stretched that law as well. Last year. for example. the attorney general filed a lawsuit against the gaming platform Roblox in King County—a ranching community of about 200 people east of Lubbock—on the justification that residents had internet access.
Paxton did not respond to requests for comment or written questions, and he has not publicly addressed decisions to file lawsuits in counties critics describe as only lightly connected to the claims.
At the heart of the latest controversy is a legal argument Paxton’s team has made about where online activity counts. In the Roblox case. the office argued that if a company has a website. it can be sued anywhere in Texas. Legal experts warned that the argument would effectively erase the Legislature’s efforts to restrict forum shopping.
That dispute was not resolved by courtroom quiet. In the Texas case law described in the reporting. when outside counsel Mark Pinkert—hired by Paxton’s office—told a judge that “They are advertising broadly. ” the Roblox attorney Ed Burbach. who had previously led the civil litigation division under Abbott. was stunned by the position.
Burbach told the judge that the attorney general’s longstanding practice had been to file statewide consumer protection cases in Travis County. and he argued that the new approach was “simply not the law. ” saying Texans and lawmakers would be “shocked to hear that outside counsel of the AG’s office would be arguing that.” The judge ultimately transferred the case to Travis County. where it is ongoing.
Paxton’s venue strategy isn’t limited to small counties or only one kind of argument, either. In the reporting, legal experts said the office has repeatedly filed political and other cases in Tarrant County, the state’s largest Republican county and home to Fort Worth.
In August, Paxton’s office chose Tarrant County as the venue to sue former Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke and his political organization. Powered By People. after the group helped pay expenses for Democratic members of the Texas Legislature who left the state to block passage of new congressional maps. Those maps, drawn at Trump’s behest, favored the GOP.
Paxton’s office argued the case had a “substantial” connection to Tarrant County because the group planned a rally in Fort Worth. When O’Rourke sought a transfer to El Paso County—where he lives and where the group is headquartered—Paxton accused him of forum shopping. Paxton secured a court order in Tarrant prohibiting Powered by People from fundraising while the case was pending. but within weeks. the 15th Court of Appeals overturned it. saying the order infringed on the organization’s free speech rights before guilt had been determined. and noting Paxton’s candidacy for U.S. Senate created an incentive to blunt Democrats’ ability to campaign.
To critics, that sequence reinforces the same concern: venue decisions can become a tool in political fights.
Michael Ariens, a professor at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio. said it looked as though the attorney general’s office was “interested in engaging in litigation games that it would otherwise decry if the shoe were on the other foot.” Paul Grimm. a former U.S. district judge in Maryland and an advocate of restricting forum shopping. said it’s hard for the public to respect a system if it believes it’s being used unfairly.
And in the middle of Paxton’s Tylenol push, the question of credibility is now part of the record too.
After Green’s order requiring registration was withdrawn, Paxton’s office attempted yet another move in Panola County. The reporting described how Paxton’s lawyers amended the original lawsuit. citing Green’s registration order as proof that Texas now had jurisdiction to pursue claims that had been dismissed. They omitted the fact that Green had voided that order.
Gugliuzza warned that if the attorney general’s office knowingly presented false information to the court, it could be “textbook sanctionable conduct.”
Paxton has not commented publicly on these filing decisions. The reporting also notes that his Tylenol case remains shaped by the legal maneuvers of the two sides.
Kenvue directed the reporting teams to a statement on its website saying there is “no proven link” between acetaminophen—the active ingredient in Tylenol—and autism. A Johnson & Johnson spokesperson said the company has had nothing to do with making or selling the drug since splitting with Kenvue in 2023.
Rafferty’s decision in Panola County to allow only one claim to proceed means Paxton’s office has kept one path alive while pursuing another through Bailey County. But for the drugmakers, the venue question remains inseparable from the merits.
For Texas, forum shopping has long been a flashpoint. The reporting traces how plaintiffs’ attorneys once swarmed small counties viewed as sympathetic. pushing lawmakers toward a 1990s-era venue rule requiring that a “substantial part” of the alleged violation take place in the county where a case is filed. The practice. Robert Duncan—then a Republican state representative from Lubbock—later described when he authored a bill to crack down on it.
Duncan told the reporting teams he traveled hundreds of miles for cases that had no connection to the border region. saying forum shopping led attorneys to choose courts with “no reason to be there other than the bias or prejudice” of a plaintiff’s lawyer—rather than giving defendants a fair opportunity.
Duncan declined to comment on Paxton’s approach.
Paxton, meanwhile, has also stayed in the spotlight beyond the courthouse. The reporting says Trump on Tuesday endorsed Paxton in his U.S. Senate race.
Whether that endorsement affects the legal strategy isn’t something anyone can prove from the courtroom record alone. But the filings. the shifting venues. and the setbacks in Panola County have made the venue question unavoidable—turning what Paxton once criticized as a threat to “fairness and neutrality” into a recurring feature of his litigation in Texas.
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