As noted earlier here, the occasional bad day that Merck experienced recently in regard to a couple of its Vioxx cases is inevitable when defending tens of thousands of such cases.
However, it’s also inevitable that Merck will experience some good days during the Vioxx trial marathon. One of those occurred yesterday as the federal judge in the recent New Orleans trial that concluded with a $51 million jury verdict against Merck threw out the verdict on the basis that the jury’s award was clearly excessive.
Meanwhile, according to this Heather Won Tesoriero/WSJ ($) article, a juror involved in awarding a plaintiff a $32 million verdict against Merck in a Vioxx trial that took place earlier this year in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley had borrowed money from the plaintiff prior to the trial, a small detail that the juror did not disclose during pre-trial questioning. As noted in this prior post, the Rio Grande Valley was rated by the American Tort Reform Association as the number one “judicial hell-hole” for 2005. The ATRA describes a judicial hell-hole as a venue of “disproportionately harmful impact on civil litigation. Litigation tourists, guided by their personal injury lawyers, seek out these places because they know they will produce a positive outcome – an excessive verdict or settlement, a favorable precedent, or both.”
Looks to me as if Merck needs to compare notes with Ford Motor Company over this one.