Appeals Court Hands Vioxx Plaintiff Relief

[WSJ_law_blog]

Public corruption. Lawyer fraud. A potentially record-breaking ponzi scheme. General Motors on the brink.

Makes you want to reach for the painkillers, doesn’t it?

Just in time, Vioxx is back in the news. Remember that dusty little trial from Rio Grande City, Texas (think “A Civil Action” meets “No Country for Old Men”)? Two years ago, a Rio Grande City jury awarded Felicia Garza $32 million over her husband?s fatal heart attack, a sum that was later reduced to $7.75 million under state damages caps. But in May, a Texas state appellate court kicked the verdict to the curb, ruling there was insufficient evidence linking the drug to a heart attack suffered by Mr. Garza — a fatal flaw in the case that tort students will recognize as a lack of specific causation.

But now Texas Lawyer reports that the appeals court has reversed its May 14 holding that Garza’s pre-existing heart problems could not be ruled out as the cause of his death. Justice Sandee Bryan Marion wrote for the panel that “after reviewing the evidence . . .we conclude the plaintiffs carried their burden of presenting legally sufficient evidence to support a finding of specific causation.”

Merck’s attorney, Baker Botts partner Stephen Tipps of Houston, says, “The court totally reversed its position on specific causation. We believe and continue to believe it got it right on specific causation in May and that its new opinion on specific causation is wrong.”

Luis Cardenas, an attorney for the plaintiffs and partner in Escobedo Tippit, says his clients are going back to trial with an appellate court’s ruling that vindicates their proof and evidence. “That’s a great starting point,” Cardenas says.