A landmark third-party personal injury lawsuit ended last week when the Oregon Supreme Court refused to review the case of a physician who sued a pharmaceutical company for failing to properly warn about a drug's contraindications. Dr. Frederick Edwards filed suit against Key Pharmaceuticals Inc., a division of Schering-Plough Corp., in 1991 after his patient, Paul Bocci, suffered brain damage while taking the asthma medication Theo-Dur.

Edwards claimed the company was negligent for failing to adequately caution doctors and consumers about possible harmful antibiotic interactions with Theo-Dur. At the time Edwards prescribed the asthma medication, Bocci was also taking the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. In his original complaint, Edwards alleged that Key's deception tainted his reputation as a physician. A jury awarded the doctor $22.5 million in punitive damages in 1994, which a Court of Appeals upheld in 1999. Key appealed again but the Oregon Supreme Court refused to review the multi-million dollar judgment last week.