Serene Warren, the 58-year-old heiress to Minnesota's Evenstad pharmaceutical fortune, has won a legal reprieve in her long-running battle with her family over the division of proceeds from the sale of Upsher-Smith Laboratories. The Minnesota State Supreme Court ruled in August that Warren has standing to sue and sent her case back to the appeals court, overturning an earlier decision that had gone against her. The dispute has torn apart the once-close family, whose feud continued even as patriarch Ken Evenstad died in 2020 estranged from his daughter.

Warren sued her family in 2018 for $228 million, arguing that the $283 million she received when Upsher-Smith's generic drug business was sold was inadequate, particularly after her brother Mark was given a larger stake in the company he ran as chief executive from 2003. A lower court had previously ordered $41 million in redemption payments to Warren, a ruling an appeals court later reversed before the Supreme Court's intervention revived her case. Her mother Grace, 82, and brother Mark, 57, sought a rehearing, which was denied last week, meaning the case now returns to the appeals court for further consideration.