Thu May 29, 2008. NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Texas appeals court on Thursday reversed a $26.1 million decision against Merck & Co, finding that its withdrawn Vioxx painkiller did not cause the fatal heart attack suffered by a plaintiff's husband.In what was the first Vioxx case to come to trial, a Texas jury in 2005 found that the drug was responsible for Robert Ernst's heart attack and awarded his widow $253 million, an award that was later lowered by limits under Texas law but one that sent shock waves through Merck investors and appeared to set the stage for a wave of pending cases.
Thursday's ruling came just two weeks after a Texas appellate court overturned a $7.75 million award to another widow in a Vioxx case and sent Merck shares nearly 2 percent higher.
In the latest decision, the judges wrote that "we find no evidence that Ernst suffered a (heart attack) triggered by a blood clot. Accordingly, appellee failed to show that the ingestion of Vioxx caused her husband's death."
In a separate Vioxx ruling, a New Jersey court reversed awards of punitive damage and legal fees and costs in a pair of cases, Merck said, leaving intact $4.5 million of what had been a $13.5 million jury award.
"Today's decisions overturn almost $40 million of damages and attorneys fees previously awarded to plaintiffs at trial," Merck General Counsel Bruce Kuhlik said in a statement.
"We intend to seek further review of the portion of the award that remains standing after the New Jersey decision," he added.
Mark Lanier, attorney for Ernst's widow and several other Vioxx plaintiffs, complained in a CNBC interview that Texas judges were notoriously pro-business, and later announced plans to appeal the Texas decision.
"Activist judges are protecting corporate executives and stripping away the rights of widows and every other victim of corporate misconduct," Lanier said in a statement.
Despite the defeat in the first Vioxx trial and the stunning original award against Merck, the drugmaker went on to win the majority of cases to reach trial. Last November, Merck agreed to pay $4.85 billion to settle thousands of Vioxx claims. At the time the settlement was announced, Merck was facing some 26,600 lawsuits from former Vioxx users.
Merck pulled the once $2.5 billion a year drug from the market in September 2004 after a study found it doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients who took it for at least 18 months. By then the medicine had been used by some 20 million U.S. patients.
Merck shares rose 62 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $39.28 on the New York Stock Exchange at midday.
(Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf, editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Richard Chang)
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