ANGLETON, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas jury on Friday found drug maker Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK.N: Quote, Profile, Research) negligent in the death of a man who took its popular painkiller Vioxx and awarded his widow $253 million (141 million pounds) in the first of thousands of Vioxx lawsuits to go to trial.
The case filed by widow Carol Ernst charged that Vioxx had caused her husband, Robert Ernst, a 59-year-old marathoner who took the drug for eight months, to die of a heart attack in 2001.
Merck disputed the accusation, saying an irregular heartbeat and clogged arteries killed Ernst, not Vioxx.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsA...C968678_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-MERCK-VIOXX-DC.XML
The main reason why I've posted this wasn't the Vioxx lawsuit itself, but the "award" of $253 million!? :shock:
Is this a "usual" amount in large lawsuits in the US, and is it likely that she'll get paid that amount if Merck doesn't win the appeal???
It's certainly a tragedy if it's Vioxx that caused the death of her husband, but there's supposed to be more than 4,200 other Vioxx lawsuits waiting in line after this one, and I don't think that the company will be able to pay out more than 2-3 amounts of that size if they should loose just a small percentage of the other cases as well...
Any US members here who could "enlighten" me on the US legal/lawsuit system??