Court awards $10.5 million in Accutane lawsuit

NUTLEY, N.J. A New Jersey court jury awarded a 24-year-old woman $10.5 million in a case involving the acne medication Accutane, one of 425 against the drug’s manufacturer Hoffmann-LaRoche, which alleges that the drug causes inflammatory-bowel disease, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Kamie Kendall started taking Accutane at age 12, later being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the age of 14, and in 2006 she had her colon removed. As a result Kendall suffers from debilitating diarrhea.

The jury awarded $10.5 million in compensatory damages plus $78,500 for medical expenses. The judge presiding over the case ruled there was insufficient evidence to allow the jury to consider punitive damages or consumer fraud.

Including this case, plaintiffs have won all three cases that have gone to trial so far.

The first case alleging that Accutane causes inflammatory-bowel disease went to trial in May 2007 and resulted in a $2.6 million award to an Alabama plaintiff. In a second case in October, a jury awarded a Florida plaintiff $7 million.

A Hoffman-LaRoche spokesman said the company plans to appeal all three verdicts.