The laboratory had been ordered to pay 1,000 euros to each plaintiff in June 2020.
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New legal victory for Levothyrox users. The Court of Cassation rejected on Wednesday March 16 the appeal of the German pharmaceutical company Merck, sentenced in 2020 by the Lyon Court of Appeal to compensate more than 3,300 users of the drug who suffered from side effects following a change of formula. In its judgment, the highest civil law court confirms that “when the composition of a drug changes and this change in formula is not explicitly indicated in the leaflet, the manufacturer and the operator can be blamed for a lack of information”can “causing moral harm”.
The Court of Appeal therefore recognized “a fault”ordering Merck to pay 1,000 euros to each of the plaintiffs for “moral prejudice”a total of more than 3.3 million euros, while the latter claimed compensation of 10,000 euros per person.
The Lyon Court of Appeal recognized that Merck had committed “a fault” during of the change of formula his Levothyrox treatment, treating hyperthyroidism and requiring a very fine dosage, and ordered the pharmaceutical company to pay 1,000 euros to each of the complainants on June 25, 2020. The appeal body “declared admissible the appeal of the civil parties and (…) held that Merck had committed a fault. The court considers that there was a moral prejudice suffered by all the parties”their lawyer Christophe Lèguevaques told the press.