PharmaGossip:
“Under New Jersey law, the jury will return to the Atlantic County courthouse this morning for the penalty phase of the trial. After hearing additional testimony, the panel will be asked to set the amount of punitive damages, which are capped by law at five times the compensatory damages awarded to McDarby and his wife.

That means Merck could be liable for up to $22.5 million.”

CNNMoney:
“But they have enormous financial flexibility, because they need it. It is far from clear that they will ever have to pay out a very large number. I expect them to be able to effectively conduct their business regardless of what happens with individual Vioxx cases.”

A Georgia Lawyer:
“Once again lazy reporting on many TV outlets. Most reasonable attorneys would not see a $45 verdict as a ‘W.’ On a news report here in Atlanta last evenign [sic], the sixty second blurb about the verdict included a teaser about two jury verdicts against Merck. The report said that Merck lost two cases in a State Court in New Jersy, including one verdict for more than four million dollars.”

John A. Day:
“Worse yet for Merck, the verdict demonstrates that that a jury can sort through the facts of the causation testimony of at least two plaintiffs and reach different results on each. Recall that Merck argued that a jury would get confused if two cases were tried at the same time. If both plaintiffs had won Merck would have argued that the jury was confused and there should be no consolidated trials in the future. If both plaintiffs had lost Merck would have argued the the jury was brilliant but that trials should not be consolidated in the future because the risk of confusion was too great. The split verdict on causation shows that the jury was able to consider the evidence on causation for the two men seperately and, apparently, rationally. Look for more trials with multiple plaintiffs. In fact, look for trials with three or four plaintiffs (maybe more) in New Jersey state court.”

Forbes.com:
“Timothy Anderson, an analyst at Prudential Equity Group who is neutral on Merck shares, wrote in a note to investors that the decision was on balance a negative for Merck. His reason: It was decided that Merck had failed to adequately warn consumers and that Vioxx had been a substantial contributor to the man’s heart attack. Moreover, the damages of $4.5 million were already high. A punitive award, up to five times bigger, could also be in the offing.”

Evan Schaeffer:
“I often wonder why the Vioxx litigation is being followed so much more closely than other mass torts, including the diet-drug litigation, which began in 1997 and is still continuing. Is it because so many people took Vioxx? Is it because so many people own Merck stock?”

PointofLaw.com:
“Chuck Harrell, a member of the Merck legal team, said that the split verdict ‘at least suggests that we need to look at these cases on an individual basis, as we have done in the past.’ Cold comfort, that. Especially in the face of the grim assessment delivered by WBB Securities healthcare analyst Steve Brozak: ‘This is death by a thousand cuts.'”