Merck's Pain Persists

Seeger's firm began investigating Merck in 2001, following a troubling study about Vioxx and filed its first lawsuits against the company the following year. It now represents 500 heart attack victims and serves as co-lead counsel in a class-action lawsuit that, by itself, could cost the company an estimated $10 billion.

Wall Street has estimated Merck's total Vioxx exposure at anywhere between $4 billion and $55 billion. The company's stock plunged 7.7% to $28.06 on Friday's news.

For its part, Merck has vowed to vigorously defend itself against the 4,000-plus cases still pending against the company in court. But Seeger, for one, believes that Merck has made a huge mistake by vowing to "fight to its death" with so much evidence against it.

Likewise, Strong feels that Merck should have at least begun preparing for potential losses. Instead, he says, the company has set aside only the money necessary to litigate the cases and nothing at all for any damages.

"I don't know where their confidence comes from," Strong said. "But this verdict today shows that it's certainly misplaced."

Edward Ricci, a high-profile Florida attorney whose firm represents 450 Vioxx plaintiffs, believes the company clearly overestimated its chances in the current case. He says companies typically rely on just three strategies to defend themselves against product liability lawsuits. First, he says, they can try to prove that the product was not defective at all. Second, he says, they can try to minimize any damages that were in fact suffered. And finally, he says, they can try to show that their product did not actually cause the damages that did occur.

However, Ricci says, Vioxx was obviously defective -- linked to heart attack deaths in some -- and was yanked from the market as a result. Thus, he says, Merck set out to prove that the victim in this particular case died from heart problems that were unrelated to the drug. Instead, he says, damaging testimony from the coroner who reviewed that patient's death convinced the jury otherwise.