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In the wrongful death lawsuit between Aaron Carter’s family and a Los Angeles mental health clinic, who prescribed Xanax to the singer, an agreement has been reached.
Amen Clinics will pay a “confidential amount” as a “full and final settlement” of allegations against the clinic and one of its psychiatrists, Dr. John Faber. This emerges from court documents filed on May 12 and obtained by Billboard. The settlement amount was “in the order of magnitude” of the amount of damages sought by Carter’s family, which was less than $325,000.
In the filing, lawyers emphasized that the clinic met all standards of care and that the artist’s death was not due to Xanax, but rather to inhalation of difluoroethane from pressurized cans.
Lawsuit on behalf of the son
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Carter’s toddler son and sole heir, Princeton Lyric Carter, in connection with the singer’s drug-related drowning in 2022. The case went through a series of legal hurdles before a Los Angeles County judge ruled last year that Princeton had the right to a jury trial. This concerns the allegation that two doctors and two pharmacies prescribed and supplied the late pop star with “excessively high and inappropriately frequent amounts” of Xanax.
The remaining defendants – dentist Jason Mirabile, Walgreens and Santa Monica Medical Plaza Pharmacy – have not settled and are scheduled to appear in court in October.
A lawyer for Mirabile declined to comment. Lawyers for Amen Clinics, the Carter family, Walgreens and Santa Monica Medical Plaza Pharmacy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ROLLING STONE.
From child star to pop phenomenon
Carter released his self-titled solo album in 1997 at the age of nine and opened for his brother Nick’s Backstreet Boys – making him an overnight global phenomenon. His second album, 2000’s platinum-selling “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It),” included his greatest hits “I Want Candy” and the record’s title track.
Two more Top 20 albums followed – “Oh Aaron” (2001) and “Another Earthquake” (2002) – before the boy band era waned. His last album, “Love,” was released in 2018.
