Nearly three years after Merck withdrew its Cox-2 painkiller over links to heart attacks and strokes, none of the approximately 45,000 people suing the drugmaker have collected a penny, including the Texas widow who was awarded $26 million in the first Vioxx trial. Why? Lengthy appeals, a huge case load, and Merck’s determination to fight each and every case, a strategy the drugmaker’s general counsel and newly named No. 2 exec, Ken Frazier, vowed to pursue from the start.

The effort “seems to have worked quite well,” Peter Schuck, a Yale Law School professor who specializes in complex litigation, tells The New York Times. “They have discouraged the plaintiffs’ bar from litigating these cases.” Wall Street now believes Merck’s ultimate Vioxx liability is closer to $5 billion than $25 billion, Lehman Brothers analyst Tony Butler adds. The reasoning - with fewer than 20 lawsuits so far making it to trial, some plaintiffs won’t live long enough to see any money.

“Merck’s goal is to manipulate the legal system to deprive justice to tens of thousands of people whose cases can never be heard,” says Mark Lanier, the flamboyant lawyer who represented the Texas widow. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”

But Lanier and other plaintiffs’ attorneys continue to push. Meanwhile, the judges overseeing the lawsuits in federal and state courts are trying to expedite discovery and the number of cases to be tried. And the New Jersey Supreme Court is considering whether a lawsuit should be allowed to proceed as a class action or if different insurers should be forced to bring separate suits. There are also lawsuits filed by various state attorneys general.

So far, Merck has spent about $1 billion in legal fees. And reservers were recently raised to $810 million. One reason - the drugmaker must pay interest while appealing cases it loses. That’s not a new concept, but in New Jersey, this includes pre-judgment interest. In other words, if Merck loses a case and appeals, the meter is running from the time a case was filed, not the date of judgment. A recent $13.5 million verdict against Merck now stands at $15.75 million, and interest costs 6 percent a day (read this).

Of course, as Shuck points out, “nobody can make them settle.”