A Philadelphia judge has rejected an Avandia diabetes drug plaintiff’s argument that it is for a jury to decide if he acted reasonably in prosecuting a lawsuit in the wake of his wife’s death from a heart condition.

Elizabeth Lang died March 6, 2007, more than three years after she started taking Avandia to treat her diabetes, in a Wilmington, Del., hotel room, said Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Sandra Mazer Moss, writing in a July 10 opinion in Lang v. SmithKline Beecham Corp .