Source:
Associated PressMaker of once-popular painkiller wins two appeals worth $26M and $9Mupdated 12:16 p.m. ET, Thurs., May. 29, 2008
NEWARK, N.J. - Appeals courts in New Jersey and Texas on Thursday scrapped verdicts against the drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc. stemming from some of the earliest trials involving its once popular painkiller Vioxx.
A Texas court reversed a $26 million verdict against the drug company stemming from the first trial. The court found no evidence that Robert Ernst suffered a fatal heart problem from a blood clot triggered by Vioxx. He had been taking the now-withdrawn drug for eight months before being stricken in May 2001.
His widow had won a $253 million verdict against New Jersey-based Merck in 2005, but Texas punitive damage caps later cut that to about $26 million.
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“It’s a sad day that they can write a 10-page opinion and wipe out a widow’s verdict with a new judicial activism that reinterprets the evidence to support corporate executives,” Lanier said.more....
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24874604/
Well...we can thank the Federalist society for thoroughly infiltrating OUR Courts for 'Corporate Rule'.