Phipps regulation agency ‘screwed up’ specialist view in county’s opioid lawsuit

Phipps designated Alsip, main clinical officer at University Overall health, as a person of the county’s qualified witnesses in the lawsuit, which accuses a lot more than two dozen opioid brands of misleading internet marketing, fraud and false representations. The lawsuit alleges individuals actions fueled the opioid disaster in the San Antonio place, which the county says resulted in steep costs for drug treatment method and other damages.

The county filed the lawsuit in Harris County in 2018. Mayes was then County Choose Nelson Wolff’s chief of team.

Phipps later on hired Mayes as a partner at his organization to work on the opioid litigation. Although working at the firm, Mayes also served on the board of University Overall health, the county’s general public clinic program, as an appointee of Wolff — a posture that would thrust Mayes into a conflict more than the Alsip testimony and spur his resignations.

In August, Phipps submitted to opposing counsel a summary of Alsip’s predicted testimony in the case.

In portion, the 13-webpage report stated Alsip would testify that opioid manufacturers aggressively promoted the drugs while downplaying the threat of addiction and overstating their advantages, changing the way physicians address chronic discomfort.

This was news to Alsip.

The medical professional was “not pleased with the ‘expert report’ which was ready and submitted without any enter from him and which purports to (but does not) comprise his skilled opinions,” Alsip’s lawyer, Laura Cavaretta, reported in an e mail to Phipps and other lawyers in September.

In an job interview, Robert Vargas, a San Antonio political guide who labored on the opioid litigation at the Phipps agency in a nonlegal ability, explained the organization submitted the report devoid of Alsip’s know-how.

“One of my responsibilities for the duration of that period was to contact some of our authorities that we were being heading to be operating with,” claimed Vargas, who resigned from the business previous thirty day period. “I can say that when expert testimony was staying crafted, that Dr. Alsip’s testimony was submitted without the need of his information. Dr. Alsip didn’t know that we had been putting him in there.”

Alsip later was dropped as a specified expert in Bexar County’s case, and the report ready beneath his title was withdrawn.

Alsip declined to comment. Phipps did not return a call seeking remark, nor did Cavaretta.

On Friday evening, the organization issued a statement that reported in section: “We categorically deny that everything inappropriate transpired. … We continue to be fully commited to providing the complete most effective assistance and aid for our consumers in an ethical and moral fashion.”

Phipps, 51, was arrested past week on a cost of harassing Brenda Vega, 24, his then-spouse and former legal assistant to whom he was briefly married.

The arrest adopted the resignations in January of a number of personnel of the regulation agency, including Mayes and Vargas, who claimed in a joint letter that Phipps subjected them to a hostile do the job surroundings.

On ExpressNews.com: Phipps, 51, arrested on charge of harassment

The intersecting controversies have created uncertainty about Phipps’ future function in the perhaps beneficial Bexar County lawsuit, in which the county is trying to get damages of additional than $1 billion.

The county’s lawyers would collect a proportion of the sum recovered, a regular rate arrangement in civil litigation.

Underneath deal with the county, the Phipps company stands to make 50 percent of any legal costs. But past thirty day period, right after Mayes resigned and commenced lobbing allegations of impropriety at Phipps, Wolff handed regulate of the lawsuit to Mikal Watts, co-lead counsel in the circumstance. The Watts company is entitled underneath the deal to 17 {dcfa4b42334872b3517041d7075c48816e8f617446b245cec30e8949517ffd84} of legal costs.

In a letter attained by the San Antonio Convey-News, Wolff approved Watts to “take any action” he considered necessary to protect the county’s lawful legal rights.

The change is in impact until eventually the county judge “can receive further info about the capability of Phipps Mayes PLLC to continue on as co-lead counsel or right up until the Bexar County Commissioners Court has an possibility to consider this matter at its next scheduled meeting,” Wolff wrote.

Commissioners strategy to satisfy in govt session this thirty day period to talk about the lawsuit.

In an interview, Wolff called the dispute in excess of Alsip’s professional testimony “troubling.”

“It bothered me some when that happened,” Wolff mentioned. “I don’t know specifically what (Mayes) did or what his involvement was, but the actuality that the law organization screwed it up was not superior.”

David Caudill, a regulation professor who teaches proof and ethics at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, explained he had in no way prior to heard of a legislation company distributing an professional viewpoint with out 1st getting enter from the pro. Attorneys sometimes are regarded to create an expert’s opinion, then demonstrate it to the qualified for editing and validation ahead of submitting it — a state of affairs that Caudill termed “unseemly” but not essentially unethical.

“If I shortcut that obligation and I post an expert report that the skilled has hardly ever witnessed, then I see that the specialist has not given the testimony, but rather the lawyer has pretended the specialist has supplied that testimony,” Caudill reported. “Now we feel to have an ethical difficulty.”

Regret

When Bexar County hired the Phipps organization in 2017, Mayes was functioning in Wolff’s office environment as his chief of personnel and as a coordinator for the county’s opioid undertaking power. In 2018, Wolff named Mayes as chair of a subsequent opioid endeavor force.

Mayes joined the Phipps organization in January 2019, recruited in part by point out Rep. Diego Bernal, who was doing work as an independent contractor for the agency. Bernal stated he reduce ties with the company previous thirty day period at the similar time as Mayes.

Mayes mentioned he came up with a system afterwards that 12 months to link Bexar County’s opioid lawsuit with a single by College Well being, also represented by the Phipps firm.

“The whole principle — and I know this mainly because I arrived up with the technique — was to use the UHS circumstance as leverage when negotiating on behalf of Bexar County,” Mayes said in an job interview. “They’re independent conditions, but for applications of settlement talks they were being linked.”

In May 2020, Wolff appointed Mayes to University Health’s board.

“I did not believe that that would be a conflict,” Wolff explained. “I didn’t know it was likely to guide to what it did.”

As a College Health board member and a spouse at the firm, Mayes claimed he attempted to stay away from any involvement in Alsip’s specialist testimony in Bexar County’s situation in order to steer distinct of any conflict of desire.

He reported he regarded a likely moral conflict in earning decisions on behalf of the hospital technique as a board member when simultaneously handling a medical center executive’s testimony as a law firm.

“I designed the selection above and past what was demanded to recuse myself from something linked to Alsip’s expert designation,” Mayes claimed.

However, Mayes grew to become entangled in the dispute with University Wellbeing more than the specialist report, in accordance to interviews and e-mail received by the Express-News, as well as Mayes’ individual affidavit in a complaint he mentioned he produced from Phipps to the Point out Bar of Texas in January.

Hannah Santino, who worked as Mayes’ executive assistant at the Phipps organization from the summer months of 2019 right up until February 2020, recalled environment up meetings concerning Alsip and Mayes.

“I remember him currently being a priority person for T.J. to satisfy with, and he was a title that was on my listing of to-dos, of appointments,” Santino told the Express-News.

Very last July, while Mayes was on College Health’s board, he called Alsip “to advise him that lawyers from (the company) were intrigued in talking about his testimony in the Bexar County case,” in accordance to Mayes’ bar criticism versus Phipps.

“I informed him that the objective of my call was to give him a ‘heads up’ and that ‘I (would) do every little thing I could to remain out of it,’” Mayes wrote. “I regret this call and apologize to Dr. Alsip for it.”

Pointing fingers

In the grievance, Mayes wrote that Phipps submitted a document designating Alsip as an qualified late at evening immediately after failing to meet up with a courtroom-imposed deadline.

Expert testimony is a very important factor in a case this sort of as the county’s opioid lawsuit. Expert reports can assist establish the defendants’ culpability and document the severity of the harm for which the plaintiff — in this circumstance Bexar County— seeks monetary damages.

Whilst Mayes was “intimately involved” with designations submitted on behalf of 21 other gurus in the Bexar County lawsuit, he said in the state bar criticism affidavit that he had “no involvement” with Alsip’s designation as an pro.

Cavaretta reported usually in an e-mail to Phipps and other attorneys.

In September, Cavaretta asked for documents that the Phipps company applied in guidance of Alsip’s pro viewpoint. She complained that Alsip had “never been delivered with, or observed any of the files which he purportedly ‘considered or used’ in support of his ‘opinions.’”

Cavaretta wrote that in response to her request for the files, Phipps informed her that Mayes was “handling this concern.” According to Cavaretta’s e mail, Mayes himself emailed her that “we have all the displays in our possession and I am now managing this make a difference.”

In an job interview, Mayes acknowledged sending Cavaretta the exhibits. He reported he did not go through them. Mayes mentioned Phipps “ordered” him to call Alsip and mail Cavaretta the reveals.

“Phipps requested me to do all those two items,” Mayes said. “I did not want to do them, but I didn’t feel they violated moral guidelines or any laws. I did each of which out of a sense of loyalty to Dr. Alsip.”

Mayes claimed he apologized to Alsip about the bungled specialist report at a board meeting.

“I stated, ‘I experienced almost nothing to do with it, but I’m sorry they did that to you,’” Mayes recalled.

As a end result of the controversy, Wolff questioned Mayes to resign from College Health’s board. Mayes did so in November.

“It was disturbing to the staff that that was completed,” Wolff claimed. “I really don’t know the specifics of how it was finished, but I did ask Mayes to resign from the board, which he did. I just imagined that was not great.”

The dispute over Alsip’s specialist report also led Mayes to break with Phipps, he said.

“It was that subject that created me come to a decision to resign the business and set jointly files to inform the point out bar and other authorities to Martin Phipps’ carry out,” Mayes mentioned.