Sons Take Stand In Merck Trial: Leonel Garza Sr.’s Children Say Father Loved Family, Country

By Brittney Booth, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas

Mar. 16–RIO GRANDE CITY — Before his fatal 2001 heart attack, Leonel Garza Sr. was a patriotic family man who loved to garden and spend time at the family’s ranch, said two of his sons during testimony Wednesday in his family’s case against the company that manufactured Vioxx.

Leonel Garza Jr. and Lauro “Larry” Garza were the first family members from which jurors heard since the trial began in January. Judge Alex Gabert, who is presiding over the trial, rotates among several counties and schedules the Vioxx trial at about four-day stretches each month.

Felicia Garza, her three sons and her stepdaughter are suing Vioxx’s maker, Merck & Co., for $1 billion in punitive damages alone, claiming the drug caused the 71-year-old Garza Sr.’s heart attack. The family’s lawyers also argue the company knew the drug posed a risk of heart attack, especially for people like Garza, who had past heart problems.

Garza’s youngest son, Larry Garza, 32, tearfully described to the jury his close relationship with his father. He recounted their trips to their ranch and how his father loved his wife, Felicia.

Though his father had suffered a heart attack in 1985, he seemed healthy, dancing and playing maracas during a family barbecue the Easter weekend before his death in April 2001, Larry Garza said.

So his father’s death came as a shock to his entire family, he said.

Their father was a military veteran and former ROTC instructor at Rio Grande City High School who also worked as Starr County’s assistant auditor.

“I was so emotionally distraught. I missed my father. Those first couple days were really hard,” said Larry Garza, an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

He testified he cleared out all of his father’s medicines in his house and in his truck and threw them away.

“I was just trying to get some sort of closure. Nothing I could do would make it better,” he said.

But in June 2004, Larry Garza told Merck’s lawyers he did not throw away his father’s medicines and did not remember who did. Under cross-examination from Merck lawyer Travis Sales, Larry Garza said he “vaguely” remembered that deposition.

Answering Sales’ questions, Garza said his father smoked most of his life, quitting off and on, and that his half-sister, Gloria, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, did not visit his family often and did not attend her father’s funeral.

The family’s attorneys claim that Garza was prescribed Vioxx for shoulder pain and that he took the drug for nearly a month. Merck’s lawyers, however, say Garza only used the painkiller for a week.

Merck’s attorneys point to Garza’s long-term history of heart problems, smoking and obesity as causes of his heart attack, not Vioxx.

While Merck pulled the drug in 2004 after studies showed heart attack risks increased after 18 months, the family’s attorneys argue other studies showed the drug could cause heart attacks in even short term use. They also claim the company rushed the drug to market, didn’t include proper warnings and failed to test the drug in patients at risk for heart disease.

Testimony is set to continue today.

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Brittney Booth covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4437.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas

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