Thread: Steroids Made Him Do It?

Steroids Made Him Do It? Amanda Savell's Case
Busted: Legal Q & A

By Rick Collins, J.D., CSCS

Steroids Made Him Do It?

Q: Do you think Amanda Savell's family will win their lawsuit against the makers of the steroids that her boyfriend was taking when he killed her?

A: In June, 2008, convicted big-time steroid dealer David Jacobs and his on again off again girlfriend, popular IFBB figure pro Amanda Jo Savell, were found shot to death in his Plano, Texas home. Jacobs, reportedly one of the biggest juice dealers in the country, had cooperated with authorities after his arrest and then received a probationary sentence instead of prison time. The sweet deal he got, less than a month before his death, prompted some initial speculation that the killing was a double homicide, but the authorities determined it to be a murder-suicide.

Jacobs was both a dealer and a user. Detectives found steroids in Jacobs' house, and The Dallas Morning News posted his autopsy revealing that urinalysis detected the metabolites of the anabolic steroid nandrolone and also demonstrating that he was taking testosterone. It wasn't long before fingers of blame were pointing at anabolic steroids, especially since only a year earlier former WWE superstar Chris Benoit had killed his wife and son then hanged himself in what the media widely portrayed as steroid-induced rage.

Now, two years after her murder, Amanda's bereaved parents have filed a federal wrongful death and negligence action against the parties that they claim provided the defective drugs that fueled Jacobs' murderous rage. As plaintiffs, they're seeking damages from Chinese national Lei Jin, his Shanghai company GeneScience Pharmaceutical, and 50 "John Doe" defendants, alleging that they made and sold steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) knowing the products "could and would cause harm to others, including ... causing explosive rage." The suit points out that Jin and GeneScience are already under federal indictment for unlawful distribution of human growth hormone (HGH) in the U.S., that Jacobs was a convicted steroid dealer, and that all the drugs involved were unapproved by the FDA and could not have been lawfully prescribed by a U.S. physician.

As the father of two daughters, my heart breaks for Amanda's family. I can't imagine what it would be like to bury a child. But my best information (confirmed by steroid guru Bill Lllewellyn) is that Jin and GeneScience made HGH only, and HGH isn't linked to aggression. Even if Jin and GeneScience are somehow linked to steroids, it's doubtful a judgment could be enforced against parties whose assets are in Shanghai.

As for the unnamed defendants, although the lawsuit alleges that Jacobs' behavior was "a classic example of 'roid rage' a well-documented dangerous reaction from the unlawful use of steroids," University of South Florida psychology professor Dr. Jack Darkes says, "I would not consider the existing documentation ... sufficient to make this a reasonable assertion. The complaint does not acknowledge that rage in such cases is likely to be a result of many contributing factors." He observes that "the vast majority" of steroid users use them "without physical or psychological harm." Human behavior is complex, he says, and to reduce it to this level of simplicity is not scientifically reasonable. "Are steroids necessary for such behavior? Obviously not. Are they sufficient, alone, for this behavior? Again, clearly no. Does that mean they were not a factor in this event? We cannot say that either."

A comprehensive 1998 review of the prevalence of steroid-induced violence concluded: "If [roid rage] is real, it is relatively rare (probably less than 1 percent) among steroid users." Jacobs' actions likely arose from the same matrix of issues which leads to such tragedies without steroids. Pro bodybuilder Art Atwood, a former close friend of Jacobs, called the pressures Jacobs was under "a recipe for disaster." He told The Dallas Morning News that Jacobs' being publicly branded a criminal, losing his supplement business, incurring large legal fees, and his rocky relationship with Amanda was just too much pressure. "If it is a murder-suicide," he said, "there was a whole bunch of things going on: anger, jealousy. It's a cocktail, an intensity, an obsession. It's a whole bunch of emotions packed into one act. If you put all the wrong emotions together, that's how something like this happens."

To win in court, the plaintiffs will need to prove that the defendants were negligent and that the negligence was a proximate cause of the tragedy. Proximate cause is defined as an act from which an injury results as a natural, direct, uninterrupted consequence and without which the injury wouldn't have occurred. If Jacobs' actions weren't a normal response to taking steroids, then his behavior could be considered an unforeseen, intervening cause. In other words, proximate cause is a primary cause of an injury. It is not necessarily the closest cause in time or space or the only cause. But it must produce the injury without the intervention of any independent, unforeseeable cause.

So, in order to prove their case, the plaintiffs will need to prove their claim that Jacobs' actions occurred as "a direct and proximate cause of the steroid use and human growth hormones that he was taking" and that what happened to Amanda was so foreseeable that "a person of ordinary intelligence should have anticipated the danger created by [their negligence]" [Trujillo v. Carrasco, S.W.3d., App.-El Paso]. Foreseeability is limited to what's objectively reasonable to expect, not everything that could conceivably occur. It may not be reasonable to deduce from the science that steroid use will foreseeably result in hyper-violent conduct that harms a third party.

That's pretty much what the Indiana Supreme Court concluded in Webb v. Jarvis [575 N.E.2d 996], where a doctor prescribed steroids to a patient who killed a police officer accompanying the patient's wife to gather her belongings from the home. The court concluded that the causal connection between steroids and violence wasn't well established, and so it wasn't reasonably foreseeable that the doctor's prescription would make the patient more likely to injure a third party.

Issues of foreseeability and intervening cause are generally for a jury to decide. To get the case dismissed quickly on a motion for "summary judgment," the defendants would have the burden of showing that no genuine issue of material fact exists. If they can't, the case can proceed all the way to trial. "That's enough for many personal injury lawyers to file a lawsuit," notes top New York tort lawyer Christopher McGrath, "even if it's uncertain that it's enough to win a verdict against any of the John Doe parties."

Amanda Savell was a beautiful, well-liked personality in the fitness community, and her parents' grief must be all-consuming ... but the party most responsible for their pain and loss was David Jacobs. While her parents deserve our utmost sympathy, they may never receive compensation. What "causes" things to happen is complicated, not everything is reasonably foreseeable, and sometimes when all the dust settles on a given situation, there's nobody left to blame.

Rick Collins, JD, CSCS [www.rickcollins.com] is the lawyer that members of the bodybuilding community and nutritional supplement industry turn to when they need legal help or representation. [© Rick Collins, 2010. All rights reserved. For informational purposes only, not to be construed as legal or medical advice.]

this is bull!

everyone has to point the finger at something, has to have someone or something to blame.
It's well known that juice does not make you into a psycho, your already one but things can bring it out.

Lets look at alcohol, thousands of people get drunk and beat their wifes or other people or kill them, do you turn around and blame beer or vodka? No the person is at fault and gets told by the judge etc that alcohol is no excuse for that type of behaviour. You or anyone can not turn around and sue Budwiser for beating or killing someone.

These people are just idiots and it is plain to see that they all want to put it out for a witch hunt.