It's a week for Vioxx scoops. I have in my hands what I believe are the country's first remand orders since the Vioxx MDL was formed, both emanating from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. In both cases, the plaintiffs are represented by the Vioxx team.
In remanding the cases back to state court, the court granted fees and costs in favor of the Vioxx team and against Merck and its lawyers. I've uploaded the orders to my firm's website, where you can read them (pdf) here: McQuay v. Merck and Brame v. Merck.
Why do these orders matter? As I've tried to explain in some of my posts about Vioxx, the best strategy when litigating mass torts on behalf of plaintiffs is to keep cases in state court and avoid the MDL proceedings. It's hard to do, and not always possible. This post illustrates an example of the strategy at work.
My collected Vioxx posts are here.
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