Judge denies class status for thousands of Vioxx lawsuits

Thousands of federal lawsuits claiming the drug Vioxx caused heart attacks and other conditions that killed or injured people cannot be pooled into one national class action, a judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, who was appointed to deal with pretrial matters for all federal suits involving Merck & Co.’s withdrawn painkiller, did not rule on the possibility of separate personal injury class-action suits for each state and the District of Columbia.

The judge’s reasoning in the rest of the ruling appears to support Merck’s view that the cases must be looked at individually, said Ted Mayer of Hughes Hubbard & Reed, outside counsel for the drug company.

“We are pleased with the decision,” said Kent Jarrell, a spokesman for Merck, which is based in Whitehouse Station, N.J.

Merck has won six cases, three in federal courts and three in various state district courts. A fourth state court victory was overturned and a retrial was ordered. The company has lost one federal case and three in state courts.

Fallon’s 25-page ruling rejected the plaintiffs’ proposal to try all the cases under the laws in New Jersey. They argued that the company should reasonably expect to follow the laws of the state where it is headquartered.

“While this is true, it is just as true that Merck, an international corporation providing its drugs to every state in the nation, should expect to abide by every jurisdiction’s laws,” Fallon wrote.

Because plaintiffs in other states couldn’t reasonably expect their personal injury claims to be governed by New Jersey law, it makes more sense to apply the law of each plaintiff’s home state to that plaintiff’s claims, Fallon ruled.

“Each plaintiff’s home jurisdiction has a stronger interest in deterring foreign corporations from personally injuring its citizens and ensuring that its citizens are compensated than New Jersey does in deterring its corporate citizens’ wrongdoing,” he wrote.

Russ Herman, chairman of a committee of plaintiffs’ lawyers, said the plaintiffs would ask Fallon to have one class-action suit on the single question of whether Vioxx, which was sold from late 1999 until September 2004, changed the cardiovascular system in ways that caused heart attacks.

Mayer said he didn’t think they would get that, either. He said Fallon did more than rule that differences among state laws make it impractical to bring all of the cases in one class-action suit.

Merck shares rose 16 cents to $44.38 on Wednesday.