The judge presiding over a Vioxx personal injury trial in Atlantic City rejected a motion yesterday to give one of the two plaintiffs a second chance at winning damages from the drug maker Merck & Company.

The jury ruled on Friday that Merck was not negligent in the case of Brian Hermans of Waupaca, Wis., who died at age 44 after a heart attack in September 2002. That meant his family could not collect damages.

The jury did find, however, that Merck violated New Jersey’s consumer fraud law, so Mr. Hermans’s family could recoup three times what he paid for Vioxx prescriptions, plus about $2 million in costs and fees his lawyer requested.

Late Friday, the lawyer, W. Mark Lanier, asked Judge Carol E. Higbee of Superior Court to overturn the jury’s ruling that Merck was not negligent in Mr. Hermans’s case.

Mr. Lanier argued that Mr. Hermans had started taking Vioxx before April 2002, when Merck put a stronger warning about the drug’s cardiac risks in the detailed package insert, and that he had not seen his doctor after that. Judge Higbee rejected that motion yesterday.

The jury will begin the second phase of the trial today, primarily to determine whether the second plaintiff is entitled to damages. The jury found Friday that Merck was negligent in the case of Frederick Humeston, 61, of Boise, Idaho, who survived a heart attack in September 2001, before the stronger warning.

Merck shares closed up 6 cents yesterday, at $44.25.