Another of the jurors' complaints was that senior Merck officials, including the company's former chief executive, Raymond Gilmartin, didn't come in person, and instead their videotaped depositions were shown. Mr. Frazier said complaints like those will be taken "into consideration as we plan our roster of witnesses" for subsequent cases.

Mr. Frazier also said the plaintiff's attorney, Mark Lanier, gave Merck strong avenues for an appeal, a process that he estimates could take one to three years. For instance, he said Mr. Lanier presented the jury with Vioxx marketing materials and commercials that were created after the death of Robert Ernst, whose widow sued Merck. Mr. Frazier said that because the marketing happened after Mr. Ernst's death, it was irrelevant and prejudicial and the judge should have barred it from being presented to jurors. He also said that testimony from the coroner, who had testified that she thought a heart attack precipitated Mr. Ernst's death, should also have been barred because it conflicted with what she wrote on Mr. Ernst's death certificate four years ago and she said she could not recall the autopsy.

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In addition, Mr. Frazier said Mr. Lanier extolled to the jury in closing arguments that they may gain celebrity with a big verdict against Merck, which Mr. Frazier said was inappropriate and also grounds for appeal.

Mr. Lanier disagreed. Showing the jury marketing materials distributed after Mr. Ernst's death is appropriate under Texas law, which allows a jury to consider conduct before and after an event to determine punitive damages, he said. And the coroner "merely confirmed," he said, what the Merck Manual, a book with medical terms used by doctors and patients, said: that heart attacks occur with arrhythmias 90% of the time. He also said Merck waived its right to appeal his instructions to the jury in closing statements because its lawyers didn't object during his presentation.

The Angleton trial was in state court. The wave of federal Vioxx cases has been consolidated into a multi-district litigation in the Eastern District of Louisiana, where Judge Eldon E. Fallon is conducting the coordinated pretrial proceedings. In multi-district litigation, discovery is consolidated and organized by a federal judge in order to streamline the process of trying large numbers of similar court cases.

Judge Fallon laid down a template for the first several federal trials. He directed both sides to come up with a list of categories of cases to be tried in the federal court in Louisiana.

According to lawyers for both sides, the categories will most likely be long-term use of Vioxx that allegedly resulted in a heart attack or stroke, short-term use of Vioxx that allegedly resulted in a heart attack or stroke, and possibly a category where patients allege harm following the 2002 Vioxx label change, which updated cardiovascular risk information. Merck withdrew Vioxx in September after a Merck clinical trial found patients on Vioxx for more than 18 months had an increased rate of heart attacks and strokes.

A Merck defense attorney, Theodore Mayer of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, New York, said Merck asked for the cases to be categorized so the defense can "get our hands around all the kinds of cases."

Thomas R. Kline, a partner at Kline & Specter, Philadelphia, and a member of the plaintiff's steering committee, said, "What came out of today was a roadmap by Judge Fallon as to where the cases are going in the short term."

The first federal Vioxx trial is set for Nov. 28, with trials to follow in February, March and April. Lawyers for both sides said they expect cases tried before Judge Fallon to last two weeks.

Separately, Merck asked the judge of the next Vioxx trial, in state court in New Jersey scheduled for Sept. 12, for a delay.

Write to Barbara Martinez at Barbara.Martinez@wsj.com³ and Heather Won Tesoriero at heather.tesoriero@wsj.com⁴