Federal judge orders for new trial in Vioxx case
A legal battle over Merck’s painkiller Vioxx took another turn on Wednesday when a federal Judge dismissed a $51 million damage award against the company and quashed two European class-action suits.
With the federal Judge’s decision, Merck & Co. regained its momentum which it had lost since the withdrawn of its painkiller, Vioxx.
Eldon Fallon, a U.S. District Judge in New Orleans, who oversees all Vioxx lawsuits in the federal courts, ruled Wednesday that the $50 million compensatory damage award a jury voted for on Aug. 17 was "excessive under any conceivable substantive standard of excessiveness."
He said a new trial to determine damages against Merck in the case that it lost this month must be held. The order for a new trial on damages alone is the latest of many twists in the flurry of litigation over Merck’s painkiller.
Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market in September 2004 after a study showed a higher risk of heart attacks and stoke if used for more than 18 months of use. The company was held responsible for the cardiovascular attack of a retired FBI agent, Gerald Barnett, who took the company's Vioxx painkiller for more than four years.
The 62 years old FBI agent of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina took the drug for two and a half year before his 2002 heart attack and kept taking it on the recommendation of his doctor for another two years until the drug was withdrawn.
The pharmaceutical company faces more than 14,000 lawsuits over the cardiovascular risks of Vioxx. It also faces international lawsuits. But Judge Fallon threw away two class action lawsuits, one from France and another from Italy.
In the recent trial, the federal judge confirmed that the ruling does not change the verdict against Merck, but it orders a new trial to decide how much the manufacturer must pay a retired FBI agent. The judge found nothing wrong with the jury's $1m punitive damages award.
The jury in its ruling on 17th August found that the pharmaceutical company "knowingly misrepresented or failed to disclose" information about Vioxx to Barnett's doctors. It said Barnett should receive $50 million in compensatory damages and $1 million extra in punitive damages, saying Merck "acted in wanton, malicious, willful or reckless disregard for the plaintiff's rights."
Meanwhile, Gerald Barnett's attorney, Mark Robinson, said he had not heard about the ruling and could not comment on it.
However, the recent ruling by the federal judge could open the door for Merck to push for a comprehensive new trial, throwing away the verdict and rehearing the liability and negligence case.
Phil Beck, Merck's attorney, said in a company release, "We are pleased the Court agreed that the compensatory damages awarded were excessive and bore no relationship to the evidence presented in trial and that the Court overturned the punitive damages, as well."
Shares of Merck fell 9 cents to close at $40.85 on the New York Stock Exchange.
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Excessive?
I am 44 years old. I was in near perfect health when my doctor gave me Vioxx for three years and seven months.. I had three major heart attacks, the third ending in a seven bypass open heart surgery.. Then gallbladder failure which triggered the first of two major strokes.. I am still plagued with neuropahty of both feet and legs to the point that I need surgeries which I can't get unless I have cash to pay for them up front.. I am told they can run into the millions of dollars, but the alternative is to amputate both my legs then have medicare have to spend close to a billion dollars starting with the amputations and for the care costs until I die.. Which could be soon, or even with the pain and suffering I am going through daily, could still run on a long time.. Even though the studies show I am most likely to still die of a massive heart failure, by the understanding of all the information I have gathered to date.. The losses my family and myself have suffered up to this point has been very hard on us all! As would the ultimate lost the will feel when I do die.. My daughter keeps insisting, if I get my day in court, no matter where it is, or when; She has to travel with me to take care of me!! she is just turning fifteen, my son thirteen.. Ok a big time company, our government and all in between, in fact allowed this to happen to humanity.. And now from a simple standpoint of what's right and wrong, should be, but is not being made to pay for it's mistakes?
Excessive? I almost died more then a few times.. I can only give GOD the credit for why I am not dead yet, as it was said I should have died three times already.
So to the Honorable Judge Fallon, I ask you, WHAT IS EXCESSIVE, When trying to put a price on human life, a father's life that can be taken away from the kids like a flash... To all of the Merck officials, Other companies with the same litigation going on due to their poisons and all of the judges, lawyers, people who would try to cheat the FBI agent, myself and anyone who has either survived or lost someone to this medical poisons that was pushed on us without proper warnings? my simple question is this,
WHAT IS EXCESSIVE???
I wonder why these people won't stop, take a few minutes to put themselves and the people in their own lives in the places of those this has effected and see how easy it would be for them to sleep at night??? I do not understand how any of them can sleep at night now, as it is.. I can't!!! Not unless I have sleep aid.. Oh but medicare / medicaid has been cut to the point where I now fall under yet another form of oppression that is going on in this world.. The Sick and Poor suffer for the betterment of the Rich and Well...
Oh well, God's Will Be Done, and Blessings to the many people that have suffered these poisons!
Sad1