Getting your player ready...
NEWARK, N.J. — Appeals courts in New Jersey and Texas on Thursday scrapped verdicts against 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.
Also Thursday, a New Jersey appeals court voided $9 million of the $13.9 million awarded to John McDarby in 2006. The panel found that New Jersey’s Product Liability Act was pre-empted by the federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.
