The Supreme Court today refused to reinstate a $550,000 award won, and then lost, by a Texas couple whose daughter was born with deformities after her mother took the anti-nausea drug Bendectin. The justices, without comment, let stand a federal appeals court ruling that overturned a jury award against Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the drug's manufacturer. Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Brock of Moscow, Texas, sued Merrell Dow after their daughter, Rachel, was born with deformed limbs in 1982. A three-member panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year threw out the $550,000 judgment a federal trial jury had awarded the Brocks. The appeals court said there is no definitive scientific proof that Bendectin causes birth defects, and said the jury award was based on speculation. ``Speculation unconfirmed by ... proof cannot form the basis for causation in a court of law,'' the appeals court said. The full 5th Circuit court, by a 8-6 vote, refused to review the three-member panel's ruling. The dissenters noted that six experts testified for the Brocks that Bendectin is capable of causing birth defects, and that three testified they believed the drug caused Rachel's deformities. The dissenting judges said appellate courts should not substitute their understanding of the facts for that of a jury merely because medical experts disagree. Bendectin was marketed by Richardson-Merrell Inc. between 1957 and 1983. More than 30 million women used the drug during pregnancy. Richardson-Merrell later became Merrell Dow, which last July merged with Marion Laboratories Inc. and became Marion Merrell Dow Inc., based in Kansas City. The company stopped selling Bendectin 1983, although the Federal Drug Administration never has rescinded approval of it. Merrell Dow in 1984 agreed to pay $120 million to more than 800 families to compensate children with birth defects allegedly caused by Bendectin. As part of the settlement, the corporation did not admit that the drug caused the defects. The settlement was rejected by a federal appeals court, and the lawsuits then went to a consolidated trial in Ohio, where Merrell Dow has its headquarters in Hamilton County. After a 22-day trial in 1985, an Ohio jury found that Bendectin did not cause birth defects when taken in prescribed doses. The case acted on today is Brock vs. Merrell Dow, 89-1189.
