An Atlantic County judge has denied a request to certify a class action against Merck & Co. on behalf of consumers for their out-of-pocket expenses for the painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after a medical study linked it to heart disease.
Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee, in an 18-page ruling on Tuesday, said the suit lacked the elements of predominance, typicality and superiority required for certification of a class. “The decision of whether to prescribe a medication is made upon a host of individualized factors,” Higbee wrote, adding “that a class-wide trial of plaintiffs’ claims would be unmanageable.”
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