May 29, 2008

AP reports a Texas court has thrown out the infamous Ernst $26 million judgment; a New Jersey court has tossed part of the judgment in McDarby. More details as available.

Ernst was the first Vioxx suit to go to trial. A jury awarded $253 million. Mark Lanier waited months before asking for a final judgment; at the time, I suggested that this was because he knew the case would be reversed on appeal, and did not want the bad publicity. Indeed, the appellate decision perhaps comes too late for Merck: the number of lawsuits increased from 6000 to 60000 in the months following publicity over the jury verdict, costing Merck billions of dollars in the later extortionate settlement.

With these two decisions, only three plaintiffs' verdicts in favor of Merck remain.

Update: I still haven't seen the McDarby decision, but an updated AP story indicates that it upheld the compensatory damages of $4.5 million, overturned the $9 million punitive damages verdict, and overturned the consumer-fraud judgment (which also saves Merck millions of dollars in plaintiffs' attorneys' fees). The New Jersey court also affirmed Merck's victory in the Cona case against Mark Lanier.