Types of Damages Available in an Accutane Case

When it withdrew the acne medication Accutane from the U.S. market in June 2009, manufacturer Hoffman-La Roche initially claimed the move was made for “business reasons.” Specifically, Roche cited the availability of generic forms of isotretinoin, the active ingredient in Accutane. It went on to add that it “has been faced with high costs from personal-injury lawsuits?”  Roche, in fact, faced approximately 5,000 such lawsuits from injured Accutane users when it halted sales of the drug.

It’s debatable that Roche’s primary reason for withdrawing Accutane from the U.S. market was declining profits. While other manufacturers certainly cut into Roche’s market share, it’s hard to imagine that generic isotretinoin has been more deleterious to the Swiss pharmaceutical maker than the bad press and more than $50 million in Accutane lawsuit settlements that have resulted from numerous personal injury lawsuits.

As an injured Accutane user, you’re probably curious about how much money you might be entitled to from Roche or another isotretinoin manufacturer. By looking at the general types of damages available to an individual who has been injured by a dangerous drug, as well as recoveries obtained by actual Accutane injury victims, a clearer picture emerges.

In a product liability case (such as when a dangerous drug has injured you), you can recover two types of compensatory damages (designed to get you back to where you were before being injured): monetary and non-monetary. Monetary damages are designed to reimburse you for the costs incurred directly because of an injury caused by a dangerous product, including medical bills (past, present, and future), lost wages (past, present, and future), and property damage (if applicable). Essentially, any loss that can be assigned a specific dollar amount may potentially be reimbursed by claiming monetary damages.

Non-monetary damages, conversely, are those losses that do not so easily correlate with a dollar amount. This does not mean that such harm is not worthy of compensation. Quite to the contrary, a significant portion of a plaintiff’s recovery is comprised by non-monetary damages such as physical and emotional pain and suffering, diminished enjoyment of life, a loss of friendship or consortium (spousal relations), and a loss of respect in the community.

The amount of monetary and non-monetary losses an injured Accutane user may be entitled to varies from case to case and is based on the actual harm suffered. As the examples below demonstrate, the money awards obtained by Accutane injury victims have ranged from a few million to tens of millions of dollars, including:

A man who was awarded $7 million for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)-related injuries (a verdict that was later overturned in an appeals court);
A woman with IBD who was awarded more than $10 million;
Three Florida residents with IBD who obtained a $12.9 million award from a New Jersey Court (with individual awards of $8.64 million, $2.62 million, and $1.63 million); and
An Alabama man who developed IBD and needed to have his colon removed received $25.16 million from a New Jersey Jury.
The examples above are consistent in that all of the successful plaintiffs suffered from IBD, and all of them received multi-million dollar Accutane settlements. Still, they cannot be considered “typical” because as stated previously, every Accutane case is different. For instance, the plaintiff who received the greatest amount of compensation ($25+ million) required several surgeries, one of them to remove his colon. His life is forever changed as the result of the injury, as reflected by his award.

This information should give you a better idea of how much your Accutane case might be worth. For a more detailed evaluation of your individual injuries and claim value, speak with an attorney from the Rottenstein Law Group. For more than 25 years, the lawyers of RLG have been assisting clients who were injured by defective consumer products recoup, recover, and move on from their injuries. To discuss your potential Accutane lawsuit, call RLG at 1 (888) 736-7262.

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Pharmaceutical Attorney