Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRtMmiDIMi4g
Merck’s Appeal of Vioxx Award Thrown Out, Firm Says
By Jef Feeley and David Voreacos
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Merck & Co.’s appeal of a $4.5 million jury award to a New Jersey man who blamed his heart attack on the company’s Vioxx painkiller was dismissed by an appeals court, lawyers for the man’s family said.
The New Jersey Supreme Court threw out the drugmaker’s challenges to the 2006 jury verdict for John McDarby, who died while the case was on appeal, the Weitz & Luxenberg PC law firm said today in a statement. The court’s decision means Merck will have to pay at least $4.5 million in damages to McDarby’s family, his lawyers said....
Merck, which is set to buy rival Schering-Plough Corp. by the end of the year, won 11 of 16 Vioxx suits at trial before agreeing in 2007 to create a $4.85 billion settlement fund to resolve thousands of injury claims related to the drug. The company is based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey.
Company executives are “considering their options” in the wake of the court’s decision, Ron Rogers, a Merck spokesman, said in a telephone interview today.