Vioxx User Wins Punitive Damages

A jury awarded $9 million in punitive damages on Tuesday to a man who blamed his heart attack on Vioxx, finding that Merck & Co. failed to warn about risks of its arthritis drug and misrepresented side effects to physicians.

The damages are in addition to $4.5 million already awarded to John McDarby, 77, of Park Ridge, N.J., who suffered a heart attack after four years on Vioxx, a painkiller taken by 20 million Americans before being pulled off the market.

In its only other loss in a Vioxx case, Merck was ordered last August to pay $253 million to the widow of a man who died after taking the drug for a short time. That amount will be reduced because the law in Texas, where the case was heard, limits punitive damages.

The drug company said it would appeal the latest verdict.

Tuesday’s decision capped a five-week trial that combined two cases: that of McDarby, a retired insurance agent, and Thomas Cona, 60, of Cherry Hill.

Cona said he took the drug for 22 months before his 2003 heart attack, but he couldn’t prove it. His prescription records showed only enough of the medication for about seven months’ use, and the six-woman, two-man jury rejected his claim that Vioxx was to blame.

In both, the jury said Merck misrepresented the risks of Vioxx and concealed them from prescribing physicians.

The trial -- the sixth over Merck’s once-popular painkiller -- was the first involving people alleging use of 18 months or more. That’s important because the study that prompted Merck to voluntarily withdraw the drug found that its risks doubled after 18 months’ use.

The jury could have awarded McDarby $22.5 million in punitive damages, or as much as five times the amount of the compensatory damages he had been awarded.

The verdict was the first time since New Jersey in 1995 passed a product liability act that a drug company was ordered to pay punitive damages.

“Merck’s actions were proper and did not, in any way, call for this award as defined by New Jersey law,” said Chuck Harrell, spokesman for Merck’s legal team.

“The evidence was clear that we provided the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with the information about Vioxx that we were required to provide. And under New Jersey law, that means punitive damages should not have been awarded,” Harrell said.

After the decision was announced, Merck shares fell 36 cents to $34.06.

Merck faces about 9,650 Vioxx cases in state and federal courts, and has vowed to try them one at a time.