The 15th Court of Appeals has conditionally granted a writ of mandamus requested by pharmaceutical company in qui tam action under the Texas Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act. The court’s decision was the second time the court had to mandamus a Harrison County district court on the same issue.
In In re Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals LP (No. 15-25-00088-CV; November 21, 2025), Real Parties in Interest SCEF, LP and Lynne Levin-Guzman sued AstraZeneca in Harrison County district court for allegedly enacting several unlawful kickback schemes in violation of the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act. SCEF, by the way, is a New Jersey-based entity formed solely for the purpose of bringing qui tam actions. The first alleged scheme maintained that AstraZeneca paid remuneration to third parties to “deploy white coat nurses…to recommend and influence prescriptions of” its products. The second scheme involved AstraZeneca’s alleged provision of free nurse services intended to induce prescribers to recommend AstraZeneca products, and the third alleged that the company provided “in-kind remuneration” in the form of reimbursement support services to induce the prescription of its products.
In their original petition, Real Parties included a single paragraph pertaining to venue, acknowledging § 36.052(d), Human Resources Code, which provides that a lawsuit filed under the TMFPA must be brought in Travis County or “a county in which any part of the unlawful act occurred.” Real Parties alleged that “[u]pon information and belief, venue is proper in Harrison County because Astra’s unlawful acts occurred, in part, in Harrison County.” After the state declined to intervene, AstraZeneca filed a motion to transfer venue to Travis County, arguing that none of the alleged unlawful acts took place in Harrison County. Real Parties amended their petition to allege that sales and marketing reps targeted health care facilities in Marshall, Texas. AstraZeneca made another motion to transfer venue and labeled the additional allegations “untethered” to the alleged kickback schemes because the venue allegations involved sales and marketing reps rather than nurses. Real Parties responded with a conditional motion for continuance and venue discovery. They suggested that if the above weren’t enough, a Marshall clinic had brochures promoting Fasenra, one of AstraZeneca’s products. They produced an affidavit by a consultant to one of Real Parties’ law firms (i.e., Mark Lanier’s firm), who claimed that the brochure had a QR code which led to AstraZeneca’s patient portal, thereby constituting an offer of its services.
The trial court considered the motion to transfer venue on September 1, 2023, and denied it. About 20 months later, AstraZeneca filed a petition for writ of mandamus challenging this order. In its petition, AstraZeneca observed that a “qui tam action qualifies as a suit by the State,” and the petition was timely because it was filed more than 90 days before trial was set to begin in December 2025. See Tex. Gov’t Code § 22.220(d)(1), Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.0642.
In an opinion by Chief Justice Brister, the court of appeals conditionally granted the writ. As noted above, § 36.052(d), Human Resources Code, establishes mandatory venue in Travis County for a THFPA action. AstraZeneca argued that the court’s decision in In re Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, 711 S.W.3d 732 (Tex. App.—15th Dist. 2025, orig. proceeding), which involved nearly identical facts, controlled the outcome here. Real Parties argued that the requested relief was barred by laches, failed on the merits, and that the original proceedings were rendered “null and void” by the second amended petition, which Real Parties filed after the trial court’s initial venue ruling.
Chief Justice Brister first considered “(1) whether we should consider the second amended petition filed after the motion to transfer venue was denied by the trial court; and (2) whether remand for further discovery is appropriate if we disagree with the trial court’s order denying transfer.” As he pointed out, the 1983 venue reform legislation eliminated the immense volume of satellite litigation on venue and substituted the one-and-done rule, which stipulates that “a case must proceed all the way through trial and appeal before the initial venue order can be challenged.” Echoing SCOTX, the Chief questioned the rationality of this standard but did not dispute its applicability or authority. Consequently, the trial court could not consider Real Parties’ second amended petition without violating the no-rehearing rule, so the venue determination based on the allegations in the first petition was the only issue properly before the court. In other words, the trial court’s choice to deny AstraZeneca’s motion to transfer venue barred both that court and the court of appeals from considering the second amended petition. As a matter of state law, venue was proper in Travis County, and further venue evidence be could only be considered on appeal after trial on the merits. Accordingly, the court rejected Real Parties’ argument that their second amended petition mooted the original proceeding.
Turning to the merits, Real Parties presented no evidence of unlawful acts in Harrison County beyond the affidavit from the plaintiff’s firm’s consultant, who happened to be the same affiant used in Sanofi-Aventis. In Sanofi-Aventis the consultant averred that (1) sales representatives regularly met with medical providers in Harrison county to promote Sanofi medications, and (2) Sanofi’s website was accessible and provided access to the purportedly unlawful practices. The court held that each ground was insufficient to establish venue in Harrison County because they did not provide the details of what occurred at the meetings, and that the ability to access Sanofi’s website did not constitute an “offer” as defined in the Anti-Kickback statute. While the website invited applications, it didn’t extend a binding promise to create a bilateral contract with visitors.The same reasoning applied in the case at hand. Following AstraZeneca’s specific denial, the burden fell on Real Parties to offer prima facie proof that Harrison County was the appropriate venue, which they failed to do. The third basis to establish Harrison County as the appropriate venue was the brochure found at the clinic, which was insufficient for the same reason as the website:neither amounted to an offer.
Real Parties’ next argument, that laches bars mandamus relief, failed because it lacked a showing of prejudice. All contentions made by Real Parties that they would be prejudiced if the venue was moved to Travis County stemmed from the fact of the transfer rather than the delay in seeking it. As SCOTX established in In re Laibe Corporation, 307 S.W.3d 314 (Tex. 2010), the party arguing against the venue transfer must show a clear detrimental change in position between the time the motion for reconsideration was denied and the subsequent filing for mandamus. Furthermore, the court found the purported prejudice to be speculative. That it would be “possible” that one of the experts could not attend a trial in Travis County, or “likely” that delay would occur in Travis County didn’t amount to anything. These speculations thus failed to satisfy the requirements necessary for laches. The court of appeals conditionally granted the request for mandamus relief and directed the trial court to vacate its venue order and transfer the case to Travis County.
As Chief Justice Brister observed, this is the second time the 15th Court of Appeals has had to mandamus the Harrison County district court in identical qui tam actions. What bothers us most about these cases, other than the obvious forum-shopping, is that shell entities can be formed by lawyers and law firms for the sole purpose of bringing qui tam actions. This would seem to create the potential for abuse. Perhaps the statute should be amended to address the effect of the state’s decision not to intervene in a case involving one of these shell plaintiffs, or perhaps to limit venue to Travis County. That would at least eliminate forum shopping these cases to trial courts perceived to be more friendly to plaintiff’s claims.
Satchel Williams researched and prepared the first draft of this article.
