Three years after Aaron Carter’s sudden death at the age of 34, the deceased singer’s family has been granted a trial next year against doctors and pharmacies that gave him access to Xanax pills.
The 2000s teen pop sensation drowned in a bathtub in 2022 after inhaling refrigerant gas and taking Xanax. Carter’s former fiancée later sued on behalf of the son they had together, alleging that psychiatrist Dr. John Faber and dentist Dr. Jason Mirabile over-prescribed him Xanax, and that Walgreens and an independent Los Angeles pharmacy wrongly filled the prescriptions without checking to see if Carter was abusing the drug.
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Both the doctors and the pharmacies sought to throw out the case based on expert reports concluding that the amount of Xanax in Carter’s system was not enough to make him lose consciousness, and that the real culprit was the gas he inhaled from canisters of compressed air (known as difluoroethane). But Carter’s lawyers have their own experts who say Xanax was at least partly to blame for his drowning — meaning the case must be decided by a jury.
“Defendant concedes that plaintiff’s opposition, supported by expert Dr. George C. Georgaklis, raises a triable issue of material fact as to the medical malpractice claim,” wrote Judge Daniel L. Alexander in a July 31 order rejecting Dr. Mirabile’s argument. “Thus, the Court denies the motion for summary adjudication as to medical negligence and wrongful death.”
Judge Alexander similarly denied Santa Monica Medical Plaza Pharmacy’s motion on Sept. 22 and arguments from both Walgreens and Dr. Faber this past Friday (Nov. 21). The negligence and wrongful death claims are now set for trial in June 2026, unless a settlement is reached before then.
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The various summary judgment orders did, however, trim away portions of the lawsuit that sought damages for the pain and suffering Carter experienced before his death. The judge said these are claims that only Carter’s estate representative has the right to bring, not his now four-year-old son, Princeton Lyric Carter.
That means that if the lawsuit indeed goes to trial in June, the child can only seek financial damages from the doctors and pharmacies for harm he himself suffered from Carter’s death. This includes loss of financial support and emotional damage from not getting to know his father.
In a statement to Billboard on Monday (Nov. 24), the Carter family’s attorney Marc Lazo said his team is now “hopeful that the defendants will realize the magnitude of their liability and enter into good-faith settlement negotiations accordingly.”
Lawyers for the doctors and pharmacies did not immediately return requests for comment.
Carter got his start opening for the Backstreet Boys, of which his older brother Nick Carter was a member, in the late 1990s. He later became a teen heartthrob in his own right, with his 2000 album Aaron’s Party (Come and Get It) peaking at No. 4 and spending 67 weeks on the Billboard 200.
Carter was open later in life about struggling with substance abuse. The singer did multiple stints in rehab, and he had been attending outpatient therapy in the months leading up to his death.
