Atlantic City, NJ - A state court jury hearing a Vioxx product liability case brought by a postal worker against the drug maker Merck deliberated about an hour Tuesday without reaching a verdict and was then sent home for the night after getting the case earlier in the day.

The six-woman, three-man panel will try again Wednesday to decide whether manufacturer Merck & Company knowingly misrepresented the safety risks posed by its blockbuster arthritis drug and whether Vioxx contributed to the heart attack suffered by Frederick ''Mike'' Humeston.

Frederick Humeston, 60, of Boise, Idaho, took the drug for about two months before suffering a non-fatal heart attack in September 2001.

His lawsuit is one of about 7,000 lawsuits brought against the Whitehouse Station-based drug company, Merck & Company, which pulled the prescription painkiller off the market a year ago after a study showed it doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke after 18 months' use.

Last August, a Texas jury awarded $253 million in damages to the widow of a Vioxx user. Under Texas law, that will be cut to no more than $26 million.

Merck & Company plans to appeal.

Citing internal Merck documents, Mr. Seeger, Humeston's attorney, said that Merck calculated a $437 million loss if the company failed to neutralize concerns about Vioxx's cardiovascular risks raised in clinical studies.

A clinical study of Vioxx concluded in 2000 that those taking it had five times as many heart attacks as patients taking the older anti-inflammatory drug naproxen.

Heart experts who testified on Humeston's behalf said that Humeston had healthy arteries and almost none of the risk factors for heart disease when he suffered his heart attack on Septtember 18, 2001 after taking two 25-milligram Vioxx tablets.