Texas Returns to Keller Postman to Link Tylenol to Child Autism

Texas is turning again to Keller Postman, a firm that helped the state secure a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta, as it tries to link Tylenol with an increased risk of autism.

Keller Postman will act as lead outside counsel in a groundbreaking lawsuit Texas announced Tuesday, Ashley Keller, a senior partner, confirmed in an interview with Bloomberg Law. In addition to previously litigating anti-privacy claims for the state against Big Tech, the firm has also brought similar litigation against the pain reliever alleging harm to children.

Texas in the lawsuit brought in Panola County, a rural community with a population of about 23,000, says Johnson & Johnson, the drug’s onetime owner, and Kenvue, which owns it now, deceptively marketed it to pregnant mothers despite knowing exposure to acetaminophen, its active ingredient, can cause disorders in minors.

“We don’t have to wait until we’re 100% certain before we sound the alarm,” Keller said. “That’s not how we treat any other medicine and that’s not how we should treat Tylenol. Challenge accepted.”

The lawsuit comes weeks after President Donald Trump claimed the drug caused autism in children, a link that hasn’t been proven.

Keller said the legal services contract calls for payment only if Texas wins, similar to a contingency agreement the firm accepted with the state in litigation against Meta.

Last year, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram agreed to pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle claims that it abused users’ facial recognition data, with Keller Postman pocketing $93.36 million in fees. The settlement was and remains today the largest ever by a single state.

The firm with offices in eight US cities also represents Texas on contingency in antitrust claims against Google.

“I take appropriate risk and put skin in the game alongside my client,” Keller said in a phone interview Tuesday.

“I don’t think it’ll be the herculean lift you think it is,” Keller said on Texas’ path to victory.

$3,780 an Hour

Keller, based in the firm’s Miami office, said he believes the hourly contingency rate in the Johnson & Johnson litigation is the same as in the Meta and Google cases.

Those contracts called for top lawyers at the firm to bill $945 an hour, multiplied by four to offset the risk of losing and coming away with nothing. That comes out to $3,780 an hour. The firm’s total net recovery in the Meta case was capped at 11% of the state’s total net recovery, just as it is in the pending Google litigation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) office didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday about its continued use of Keller Postman.

Keller, a former law clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the US Supreme Court, said he met Paxton during an interview to pitch the firm for the Google case. Another partner at the firm, Zina Bash, previously worked as a top aide to Paxton in the attorney general’s office. Bash isn’t involved in the Tylenol litigation.

“My firm is going to put a lot of resources into this,” said Keller, who is joined by three other Keller Postman attorneys in the lawsuit.

In addition to the existing working relationship with the state, Keller Postman is already litigating claims that Tylenol causes autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

On Nov. 17, the firm is arguing on appeal a federal judge’s August 2024 decision not to let them use an expert witness to establish an ADHD-acetaminophen connection. Judge Denise Cote of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York said that “none of the statements” the plaintiffs would rely on from the expert “state that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen causes ADHD in offspring.”

“You can see that’s what happened in New York,” said Katherine Brem, a professor at the University of Houston Law School. “Those cases were simply dismissed once the expert testimony was excluded.”

The Texas lawsuit differs from the New York litigation in that it advances state-level claims for deceptive trade practices and for fraudulent transfer, the latter alleging Johnson & Johnson illegally shifted its Tylenol-related liabilities to Kenvue.

The case is Texas v. Johnson & Johnson, Tex. Dist. Ct., No. 2025-348, 10/28/25.