New Accutane IBD Trial Expected This Month

Salt Lake City, UTIn the legal arena of Accutane Ulcerative Colitis, the month of May will likely see the next landmark court case based on an appeal of an earlier ruling involving an Accutane patient requiring bathroom breaks as many as 20 times in a single day. Kamie Kendall was originally awarded $10.5 million for pain and suffering, and $78,500 for medical bills on April 22, 2008, before the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court vacated the original judgment and remanded the case for a new trial.

That trial is expected this month.

According to the April 22, 2008, issue of Bloomberg News, Kamie Kendall took Accutane for a total of 12 months over a six-year period beginning in 1997 for persistent acne that refused to respond to antibiotics. During that time, the plaintiff developed constant diarrhea and rectal bleeding, requiring the Salt Lake City clerical worker to vacate her bowels 20 times a day or more. The onset of Accutane inflammatory bowel disease, allegedly at the hands of Accutane, eventually required various surgical procedures to Kendall's intestine.

In the end, Kendall's colon was removed. She sued Accutane manufacturer Hoffman-La Roche for compensation. The plaintiff's Accutane lawyers argued that isotretinoin was a highly toxic drug developed as a chemotherapy and not, originally, as an acne medication. The plaintiff also alleged that Hoffman-La Roche failed to warn in an adequate fashion about Accutane side effects involving the gastrointestinal system, and further alleged the plaintiff's dermatologist was also not aware of the risks.

It was reported by Courtroom View Network (CVN) that the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court vacated the Kendall trial via an unpublished opinion and ordered a new trial so that Hoffman-La Roche could provide quantitative information to the jury relating to the number of Accutane users and the background rate of IBD, reportedly in an effort to provide focus on the manufacturer's efforts to monitor the risk of harm.

A previous Accutane IBD trial that wound up in a retrial along similar lines proved a win for the plaintiff. In that case—McCarrell v. Hoffman-La Roche—the Accutane colitis plaintiff prevailed.