Atlantic City, NJ - A New Jersey State jury allowed a major victory for Merck & Co. in one of many court battles they are fighting over their Vioxx painkiller.

On Thursday, the jury declared that that the company will not be held responsible for a heart attack suffered by a man in 2001 while he was taking the drug.

The debate has been whether or not the company warned their customers about the risks that they were facing when taking the medication. The jury decided that they had.

The jury deliberated for less than eight hours over a three day period, but they said that the company was not guilty of failing to warn consumers.

They also dismissed any accusations of the company engaging in 'unconscionable commercial practices' when trying to get doctors to carry and prescribe the medicine.

This marks a win for the company after losing an earlier trial in Texas. A Texas jury found the company liable in August for the death of one of the patients taking the drug.

The jury awarded the plaintiff $253 million but the true amount will only be about one-tenth of that due to the state's caps on damages.

The trial was a very important event because it will set a precedent for the company's trials around the country. Much of the testimony in the trial came from medical experts.

The defendants that testified on behalf of Merck said that the company had no idea that the drug was prone to increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The drug was pulled about a year ago after an investigation revealed that it double the risk of suffering a major incident.

The most recent trial is simply one in the more than 6,500 trials that the company is facing on related charges. The company will fight each and every one and they have been helped by the verdict of the latest trial.

Thursday's verdict will allow them to use it as a precedent that they will be able to use to fight many other cases. Prosecuting lawyers are trying to find the ultimate precedent that will make Merck liable for all the Vioxx cases but for now the company has one win and one loss.

Until the lawyers determine the precedent, the following cases will be under the close eye of pharmaceutical companies, lawyers, consumers, and stock analysts. The next trial will begin on November 28th in Houston, TX.

Following the verdict, the effect was felt in the market where Merck's stock rose $1.35, or 4.8 percent, to $29.76.

The plaintiff in the trial was representing Frederick 'Mike' Humeston, 60 of Boise, Idaho. Humeston was a Vietnam vet who had begun taking the drug to help him deal with the pain of a knee injury. He suffered a heart attack only two months after starting to take Vioxx.

The Merck lawyers also tried to ask the judge for a mistrial five times but she refused each time. It was fortunate for Merck in the end.

The jury was made of six women and three men. They declared that Merck had in fact disclosed enough information about the medicine's risks and that they should not be responsible for causing Humeston's heart attack. The final vote was 8-1 in Merck's favor regarding their full disclosure of the risks. They also won unanimously against three counts of misleading doctors.

The prosecutors tried to emphasize the greediness of the drug company in trying to rush the drug to markets before there was proper testing. They accused the company of trying to beat its rival, Celebrex, at the expense of people like Humeston.

The drug was a huge success when it debuted in 1999. IT was accepted by about 20 million Americans who took the drug to help them with pain while not giving them the upset stomachs, ulcers, and other digestive problems brought on by other analgesic medicines.

Humeston began taking the drug to help him with a knee that was injured by shrapnel while he was serving for the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam. The pills were working for Humeston but one day, he took them and suffered a heart attack only a few hours later.

Humeston was in great shape according to his doctors and they believed that Vioxx had contributed to the heart attack. He had no history of heart disease and his medical records showed that his arteries were fine. The biggest risk he took was taking the medicine without the proper knowledge of the risks, said his doctors.

The prosecutors asked the jury to keep in mind that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had repeatedly approved the drug fro public use specifically for different types of pain. They had even approved it only a month before the study was released that led to the recall.

The company asked doctors to take into account the man's high blood pressure, weight, and the stress that he underwent constantly at work with his bosses. The company believes that these factors and not the drug were responsible for the man's heart attacks.

One of the largest contributors to the heart attack was a call that Humeston received the night before his heart attack, according to the company's lawyers. Humeston's personal physician had called him to alert him that he had been visited by a Postal Service fraud investigative team.

The team had secretly videotaped Humeston working on his car while at home, which caused much stress to Humeston. Merck's cardiologist tried to show that this incident was the trigger for the heart attack.

Humeston took the stand one day of the trial and it was clear that he was relatively healthy. This added to him being a sympathetic plaintiff.

One of the greatest defenses was that there had been no clear effect stemming from short-term Vioxx use and heart attacks.