Vioxx plaintiff awarded additional $9 million
A jury awarded $9 million in punitive damages on Tuesday to a man who blamed his heart attack on Vioxx, finding that manufacturer Merck & Co. failed to warn about the risks of its arthritis drug and misrepresented the risks to physicians.
The damages are in addition to $4.5 million already awarded to John McDarby, 77, of Park Ridge, who suffered a heart attack after four years on Vioxx, a painkiller taken by 20 million Americans before being pulled off the market.
In its only other loss in a Vioxx case, Merck was ordered last August to pay $253 million to the widow of a man who died after taking the drug for a short time. That amount will be reduced because the law in Texas, where the case was heard, limits punitive damages.
Tuesday's decision capped a five-week trial that combined two cases: that of McDarby, a retired insurance agent who took the drug for four years, and Thomas Cona, 60, of Cherry Hill.
Cona said he took the drug for 22 months before his 2003 heart attack, but he couldn't prove it. His prescription records showed only enough for about seven months' use, and the six-woman, two-man jury rejected his claim that Vioxx was to blame.
In both, the jury said Merck misrepresented the risks of Vioxx and concealed them from prescribing physicians.
The trial - the sixth over Merck's once-popular painkiller - was the first involving people alleging use of 18 months or more. That's important because the study that prompted Merck to voluntarily withdraw the drug found that its risks doubled after 18 months' use.
The jury could have awarded McDarby $22.5 million in punitive damages, or up to five times the amount of the compensatory damages he had been awarded.
Merck faces about 9,650 Vioxx cases in state and federal courts, and has vowed to try them one at a time.
Vioxx Lawsuit - plaintiffs seek over $1 billion in Vioxx case
Attorneys suing Merck & Co. Inc. for the death of a 71-year-old man who took Vioxx asked a Texas jury on Thursday to award more than $1 billion in damages, but Merck lawyers said the pharmaceuticals company should not have to pay anything.
The damage request includes $22 million for mental anguish and personal loss and $1 billion in punitive damages, which punish a defendant for wrong behavior.
The latter are capped at only $750,000 by Texas law, meaning the plaintiffs could collect no more than that even if the jury awarded the full $1 billion.
The two sides squared off in closing arguments of the latest lawsuit charging that Merck did not disclose the dangers of its now-withdrawn pain medicine and a man died as a result.
The jury in the trial that started January 24 was to begin deliberating later in the afternoon whether Merck is responsible for the death of Leonel Garza, who died of a heart attack on April 21, 2001 after taking Vioxx for arthritis for less than a month.
This is the fifth of more than 10,000 Vioxx lawsuits filed against the New Jersey-based drugmaker to go to a jury. The cases are being closely watched to determine how much the Vioxx issue ultimately will cost the company.
Merck withdrew the $2.5 billion-a-year drug from the market in September 2004 after a study showed it doubled heart attack and stroke risk for patients who took it 18 months or more.
Garza family attorney Joe Escobedo told the jury that Merck's greed killed Garza because the company knew the dangers of Vioxx as early as 2000 but did not reveal them because it did not want to hurt sales.
"Why didn't they put the warning on the label? Because of money," Escobedo said. "Everyone in this courtroom should be offended that they put money first."
He said studies have shown that Vioxx can cause blood clots that lead to heart attacks starting almost with the first pills.
"It doesn't take 18 months; it doesn't take 18 days. The results were immediate," Escobedo said, citing one of many studies on the drug.
He asked for $1 billion in punitive damages because he said it would send a message to Merck, which both sides agreed before arguments has a net worth of $17.3 billion.
"You have the power to tell them 'don't bring a drug that causes death and misery back on the market,"' Escobedo said.
The other $22 million in damages would be to compensate the Garza family for the anguish and pain of losing their patriarch, he said. Texas law does not cap so-called "compensatory" damages.
Merck lawyer Richard Josephson countered that Garza died of chronic heart disease he had had since 1978, not because of Vioxx.
"You'll see that Mr. Garza's time was up," he said. "The idea that Mr. Garza was in good health is science fiction. He was a serious candidate for a heart attack."
Based on medical records, Josephson also questioned whether Garza took Vioxx more than a week and whether he took it at all after April 3.
"If he stopped taking it on April 3 it would have been out of his blood April 8 and Vioxx could not have been in any way responsible for a heart attack on April 21," he said.
Josephson did not address the issue of whether Merck withheld information on the dangers of Vioxx and was late in pulling it from the market, but said the FDA even today considers drugs such as Vioxx safe for short-term use.
The trial is taking place in Starr County, which is poor and heavily Hispanic and considered by legal experts to be a friendly jurisdiction for plaintiffs. Rio Grande City is located on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The case, which has moved slowly because state District Judge Alex Gabert could hold court only one week a month due to other duties, follows a New Jersey trial this month in which $13.5 million damages were awarded to a 77-year-old man who had a heart attack after taking Vioxx more than four years.
But it was a mixed verdict for Merck because the jury also found that Vioxx did not cause the heart attack of a second defendant in the trial.
Some analysts said the $13.5 million award may signal that Merck's Vioxx legal costs ultimately will approach the $21 billion in charges Wyeth has taken for its ill-fated "fen-phen" diet drugs.
Merck has said it will appeal the New Jersey decision, as it will an August 2005 case in which a jury in Angleton, Texas, near Houston awarded $253 million in total damages. Texas law will drastically reduce that award, regardless of the outcome of the appeal.
Merck has won two other trials, including the only federal case so far, which was tried in New Orleans in February.
The drug company has said it plans to fight every lawsuit and settle none.
Vioxx case - Merck ordered to pay $32 million
Jury finds vioxx drug maker liable in death of 71-year-old Texas man
A state jury found Merck & Co. liable Friday for the death of a 71-year-old man who had a fatal heart attack within a month of taking its painkiller Vioxx and ordered the company to pay $32 million. Merck said it would appeal.
The jury of 10 men and two women deliberated for more about seven hours over two days before returning the verdict in favor of the family of Leonel Garza.
The company was ordered to pay $7 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages.
"Merck will appeal," spokesman Kent Jarrel said.
The case was the sixth of 11,500 lawsuits to reach a verdict and brings Merck's scorecard in the trials to three wins and three losses.
Attorneys for Garza said that while Garza had a history of heart problems, his veins had been cleared and a stress test showed less than a 2 percent risk of heart attack within a year. They said he had taken the drug for almost a month before he died in April of 2001.
Merck lawyers argued there was no proven link between heart problems and use of the drug for less than 18 months and said there was doubt whether Garza had taken the drug for more than a week. They said the heart attack was the end result of Garza's 23 years of heart disease.
In the prior two losses, the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company was ordered to pay one plaintiff $253.4 million, which will be reduced to $26 million under Texas caps on punitive damages; and the other $13.5 million.
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