SAN ANTONIO — The Texas Fourth Court of Appeals on May 14 overturned a $7.75 million Vioxx verdict, saying plaintiffs had failed to show that the painkiller, and not 71-year-old Leonel Garza’s existing risk factors, caused his heart attack and death in 2001 (Felicia Garza, et al. v. Heart Clinic et al., No. 04-07-00234-CV, Texas App., 4th Dist.).
“Although plaintiffs were not required to establish specific causation in terms of medical certainty, nor to conclusively exclude every other reasonable hypothesis, because Mr. Garza's preexisting cardiovascular disease was another plausible cause of his death, the plaintiffs were required to offer evidence excluding that cause with reasonable certainty,” Justice Sandee Bryan Marion wrote for the court. “We do not believe plaintiffs met their burden. Dr. [Americo] Simonini's causation opinion is based on the premise that, despite a recent scan that was only mildly abnormal, two clots formed simultaneously in two different arteries sometime after Mr. Garza began taking the Vioxx and such an occurrence was ‘rare.’ However, no scientific evidence was offered to support Dr. Simonini's opinion that the two clots were ‘rare’ for someone with Mr. Garza's risk factors. Also, Dr. Simonini provided no scientific connection between exposure to Vioxx for less than twenty-five days and the simultaneous formation of two clots.”
Justices Catherine Stone and Phyllis J. Speedlin also sat on the panel.
The case was on appeal by Merck & Co. Inc. from the 229th Judicial District for Starr County, where Judge Alex Gabert had reduced a $25 million punitive damages award to $750,000 based on a statutory state cap, but entered final judgment that left standing a jury award of $7 million in compensatory damages to Felicia Garza and her three sons.
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