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After $200 Million Verdict, Pa. Judge Calls Fen-Phen Trial 'Time-Out'

A Pennsylvania judge has granted Wyeth's motion to delay the remainder of a joint trial in the cases of two diet drug users who were each awarded $100 million in damages in the first stage of the proceedings.

Wyeth says Judge Paul R. Panepinto of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas granted its request to delay the start of the liability phase of the cases until July 25 so the parties can engage in settlement talks.

Plaintiffs Margie Paul and Elaine Karician say they developed valvular heart disease after taking the fenfluramine-phentermine diet drug combo, according to court records.

Thousands of fen-phen users filed suit against Pennsylvania-based Wyeth when the weight-loss remedy was pulled from the market in September 1997 after being linked to heart valve damage among users.

In this case, after the jury awarded $100 million each in compensatory damages to Paul and Karician, Wyeth immediately moved for a mistrial. The company told the judge the awards should be vacated because their size was "so utterly divorced from evidence properly in the record that they cannot possibly survive."

Allowing the cases to proceed to the liability phase "would be a waste of time and resources," the company's motion said.

Wyeth issued a media statement indicating that the "time-out" in the proceedings will permit its counsel to work with the two Houston firms representing the women — Blizzard, McCarthy & Nabers and Williams Bailey LLP — in an effort to resolve not only their claims but those of other former fen-phen users the firms represent.

In its mistrial motion Wyeth told Judge Panepinto that the plaintiffs' awards "exceed[] by almost 100 times any prior surviving verdict in this court in a diet drug valve case." The company says the $200 million awards exceed by some 20 times the combined total of all compensatory damages verdicts in diet drug cases rendered in the court since July 2004.

The Pennsylvania court is handling the claims of many former fen-phen users who opted out of a $3.75 billion national class settlement with Wyeth to pursue individual remedies.

Wyeth says the awards become much more incongruous when it is considered that both Paul and Karician are undisputedly "asymptomatic and not disabled." It calls each woman's level of heart problems "mild to moderate" at the time of trial.

According to the company, both are also physically active, with Paul bowling twice a week and Karician participating in regular bicycle rides with her family. Each woman also continues to work as a truck driver and teacher, respectively, and neither has lost wages or suffered reduced earning capacity.