“From the beginning, Merck has said it would look at this litigation on a case by case basis. That is exactly what we have been doing. It takes resources to back up our ongoing strategy and that is what this reserve increase is all about. We face a rigorous trial schedule for the rest of this year and into next year. We have the legal infrastructure in place across the country to ensure that we continue engaging in a vigorous defense of this litigation.“Remember, it is the plaintiffs who are responsible for filing cases. They now seem to be frustrated by the very fact that Merck is closely examining each one on an individual basis and is prepared to go to court to defend the cases.”
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Merck is fighting every case individually because there are so many cases involving elderly people that many of them will have died from other causes before their particular case comes to trial and the case will be dropped.
I think that Merck’s lawyers want to fight very case , just think of the money they can make,their son’s and daughters and grand son’s and daughters over the next three hundred and fifty years. what a joke , if it wasn’t so ridiculous I could laugh at it to . Merck has spend 368 million on nine cases tell me who’s making the money.
Anonymous 7:42, I assure you that it’s not the case that Merck’s legal expenses are zero for the time up to trial, and $368 million afterwards. It’s more like $20,000 per plaintiff.
Don’t know if anyone noticed, but one Texas plaintiff dropped her claim against Merck today, two weeks before it was due to go to trial. It may be assumed that her attorney was not interested in going to trial in the firest place, just in a quick extortion settlement, and when this was not forthcoming decided the case was frivolous after all.
Or it may be that she was stil treating and damages weren’t certain, or that the people running her case had another one they wanted to go first, or a myriad of things. She has a year to refile, so it’s not dropped forever. But you knew that, right?
No. All I know is it was dropped. How do you know it was not dropped forever? Given that the patient claimed Vioxx caused her heart attack even though she was a smoker, had other risk factors and was suing another pharmaceutical company, I prefer my explanation.
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