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Jury Awards $51 Million in Second Federal Vioxx Trial

A federal jury in New Orleans has awarded $51 million in compensatory and punitive damages to a former FBI agent who says he suffered a heart attack at age 58 because he took Vioxx for more than two years.

The jury concluded the month-long trial by deliberating just over five hours before deciding that Vioxx maker Merck & Co. had "knowingly misrepresented or failed to disclose a material fact" to the doctors who prescribed the recalled pain medication to Gerald Barnett.

The jury said that misrepresentation was a "legal cause of injury" to the South Carolina resident, whose 2002 coronary forced him to undergo a five-way heart bypass operation shortly thereafter, according to records in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The award for Barnett evens the record for Merck, at one loss and one win, in Vioxx cases that have gone to trial in federal court.

In February another New Orleans jury, also sitting as part of the Vioxx multidistrict litigation proceeding there, rejected a suit claiming that the pain drug caused the heart attack death of Florida resident Richard "Dicky" Irvin Jr. at age 53.

In this case Barnett says he took Vioxx for 33 months before his heart attack and for another two years thereafter, until the drug was pulled from the market in September 2004.

He claimed in his lawsuit that Merck should be held liable for his injuries because it placed Vioxx on the market with inadequate warnings, making it "unreasonably dangerous" to consumers.

Barnett also said Merck deceived his physician by concealing problems about the drug's safety and effectiveness.

The eight-member jury's award included $50 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages based on what it said was Merck's "willful, wanton or reckless" conduct in disregard of Barnett's rights.

Merck issued a statement indicating that it intends to appeal the verdict because Barnett had an increased risk of heart attack regardless of whether he took Vioxx.

"Both the finding and the amount of damages were totally uncalled for in this case because Merck acted appropriately in providing information to the medical, scientific and regulatory communities in a responsible and appropriate manner," Merck Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kenneth C. Frazier said in the statement.

Frazier said that although the outcome of the case was not what his company had hoped for, Merck's "commitment to defending these cases one at a time remains the same."