A Texas jury's decision to award US$253 million to a widow who sued pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. should help Canadians pursue their own lawsuits against the maker of rofecoxib (Vioxx), says a Canadian lawyer.
On Aug. 19, the jury found Merck liable for the death of Robert Ernst, who died suddenly of an arrhythmia after taking rofecoxib for 8 months, and awarded widow Carol Ernst US$24 million for pain and suffering and another US$229 million in punitive damages.
The lawyer representing Ernst relied on a paper trail that documented concerns Merck scientists expressed about the drug's cardiovascular effects. Those documents dated from 2 years before Merck began marketing rofecoxib in 1999. The company pulled the drug from the market in September 2004 after a clinical trial indicated that it increased the risk of heart attack or stroke.
More than 20 million people worldwide took the drug. There are more than 4200 other rofecoxib cases pending against Merck in the United States and an estimated 50 claims in Canada, where both individual lawsuits and class actions are in the works. Analysts estimate the total litigation represents as much as US$50 billion in liability for the company. Merck's lawyers say they will vigorously defend every case; they are appealing the Texas verdict.
Windsor, Ont., lawyer Greg Monforton is representing more than 200 Canadians who suffered a stroke or heart attack or who had family members who died while taking rofecoxib.
“We believe that most, if not all, of the documents produced in the Ernst case will be admissible in our Canadian courts because they are relevant to Merck's conduct from the time of rofecoxib's development, approval and worldwide sales, right through until its withdrawal,” says Monforton.
“In essence, these cases all revolve around the same central issues: What did Merck know, when did it know it, and what did it do with this information?” Monforton says.