First federal Vioxx trial moved to Houston from New Orleans

By KRISTEN HAYS
The Associated Press

Published September 16, 2005

HOUSTON — Yet another Hurricane Katrina "evacuee" has a home in Houston _ the nation's first federal civil trial involving Merck & Co.'s withdrawn painkiller, Vioxx.

U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon of Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, who is overseeing hundreds of federal Vioxx-related lawsuits, has ruled that the first federal trial will proceed as scheduled on Nov. 28 in Houston rather than its original venue.

According to a court filing, the judge and attorneys discussed the date and venue for the first case and all agreed Houston "was an appropriate and convenient forum for the trial."

"He consulted with the parties and made his decision that Houston was the place to do it to keep the schedule," Ted Mayer, one of Merck's lawyers, said Friday.

Fallon and a handful of his staff moved to temporary quarters at the federal courthouse in Houston earlier this month after Katrina left New Orleans a sodden mess. The judge is handling pretrial coordination of more than 1,800 federal Vioxx lawsuits to streamline steps common to the cases, such as document gathering and witness depositions.

Another 3,200 state and other Vioxx-related lawsuits are pending across the country. Last month a jury in Angleton, about 40 miles south of Houston, slapped Merck with a $253.4 million verdict in the first state Vioxx case to go to trial in the nation. That amount is expected to be reduced to no more than $26.1 million under Texas caps on punitive damages, and Merck will appeal.

The nation's second state trial began this week in Atlantic City, N.J.

The first federal trial is slated to last two weeks, Mayer said.

The November case centers on the May 2001 death of Richard Irvin Jr., a 53-year-old Florida man, who had a fatal heart attack after he took Vioxx for a month to alleviate back pain. His wife, Evelyn Irvin Plunkett, claims in her lawsuit that her husband was in "very good health" when he started taking the once-popular painkiller.

Mayer said Merck maintains that Vioxx didn't cause Irvin's death.

Plunkett's lawyer, Andy Birchfield of Montgomery, Ala., didn't immediately return a call for comment.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., pulled Vioxx from the market last September after a study showed it could double risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for 18 months or longer. The drug, prescribed to relieve acute pain and arthritis while cutting risk of stomach bleeds, went on the market in 1999 and reached peak sales of $2.5 billion a year.

Merck has vowed to fight the lion's share of litigation, though the company has said it will consider settling lawsuits that involve long-term Vioxx usage.

The lawsuits largely claim Merck knew Vioxx could be dangerous years before the withdrawal but downplayed those concerns in favor of profits. Merck counters that the company was responsible and disclosed research.