The state Supreme Court upheld the $3.6 million judgment awarded a scientist who said a pharmaceutical company forced him to quit after he tried to warn of the dangers of an experimental ulcer drug.
Syntex Corp. "violated federal public policy and common decency" when it told Gabriel L. Garay to withhold safety information or lose his job, the court said in its decision Thursday.Garay resigned from Syntex in 1987 after 16 years. Syntex claimed Garay was disgruntled because he was denied a promotion. But Garay said he quit because he was ordered to withhold information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Garay wanted to present evidence that an anti-ulcer drug the company was researching could cause heart attacks. The drug, enprostil, was eventually withdrawn and never marketed.
A Santa Clara County Superior Court jury awarded Garay $17.5 million in damages, an amount reduced to $3.6 millin by Judge Thomas Hansen. A state appeals court upheld the award in June.