Courts gut Vioxx verdicts

Alligator tears are often shed by conservatives complaining about what they call judicial activism from the left. But this is clearly a case of judicial activism from the right.

Yesterday, courts in both New Jersey and Texas gutted verdicts against drug giant Merck & Co. that resulted from its now-withdrawn painkiller Vioxx. (The drug was withdrawn when it was found to double the risk of heart attack and stroke.)

The Texas court tossed out a $26,000,000 judgment against Merck in the case of a man who died of a heart ailment after taking Vioxx for 8 months. An attorney for the man's family called this reversal a "new judicial activism" that improperly reinterpreted the existing evidence against Merck.

He also pointed out that all 3 of the judges on this panel took campaign contributions from law firms that defended the drug maker.

Isn't that some sort of conflict? And wasn't there a way to get the trial moved to a court that didn't have judges who took contributions from Merck's legal firms?

The $26,000,000 award that was thrown out wasn't even enough. That amount of money is mere pennies to a big corporation like Merck. The man's widow had been awarded $253,000,000, but the system in Texas is so favorable to Big Business that punitive damage caps slashed that judgment by almost 90%.

In New Jersey, the court voided $9,000,000 of a $13,900,000 verdict against Merck & Co. Like so many other recent activist rulings, this decision dashed the notion of federalism to smithereens by using the preemption excuse.

Recently, especially within Bush's regime, the battering ram of federal preemption has been wielded like never before. The court claimed federal law trumps the state law that allowed a larger award. This view, however, has no legal basis whatsoever.

The corporate empire has struck once again.

(Source: http://www.kgoam810.com/Article.asp?id=723272&spid=20399)