Teen pilot's family drops drug lawsuit

The 15-year-old killed himself by crashing a plane into a high-rise.

By CARRIE WEIMAR
Published June 28, 2007

Julia Bishop, Charles Bishop's mother, was one of the plaintiffs in a $70-million lawsuit targeting Hoffman-LaRoche, makers of the acne drug Accutane, blaming the drugmaker for her son's actions. Here she is shown during an appearance on NBC's Today show on April 16, 2002.
	[Times files]

ADVERTISEMENT Charles Bishop, 15, was taking the acne drug Accutane when he killed himself in 2002. [John Pendygraft | Times (2002)] Bishop stole a single-engine Cessna and crashed it into the 28th floor of the 42-floor Bank of America building in Tampa.

TAMPA - The family of a teenager who slammed a stolen plane into a Tampa high-rise has dropped its lawsuit that blamed his suicide an acne drug he was taking.

U.S. District Judge James Moody dismissed the $70-million lawsuit at the request of Julia Bishop and Karen Johnson, the mother and grandmother of 15-year-old Charles Bishop, who killed himself in January 2002.

The Pinellas County high school freshman crashed a single-engine Cessna into the 28th floor of the 42-story Bank of America building, an incident echoing the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

He left a note expressing sympathy for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, an act his family said was so irrational for him it could have been sparked only by Accutane.

In court documents, Bishop and Johnson said they could not proceed "emotionally and physically" with their suit against Hoffman-LaRoche, the maker of Accutane.

"Plaintiffs themselves have requested their counsel dismiss this case so they can stop the physical and mental torture of this litigation, " they say in a motion.

Bishop and Johnson do not elaborate, but say their lawyers have spent "hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours" on the case.

They also accuse lawyers for Hoffman-LaRoche of attacking them personally by suggesting they were hiding information about communications between Charles Bishop, an East Lake High School student, and his best friend, Emerson Favreau.

According to his deposition, Favreau said Charles Bishop sent him an instant message the night before he died saying, "I will be on the news on Saturday."

Lawyers for Hoffman-LaRoche said they spent "tens of thousands of dollars" pursuing computer records they say would show Charles Bishop's state of mind before he died. They questioned why Julia Bishop and Johnson were so reluctant to produce them.

"It is difficult for a rational observer to explain their determined efforts to avoid production of this computer information at all costs without surmising that either plaintiffs or their counsel knew the contents of the computer media would effectively terminate their lawsuit, as it apparently now has done, " wrote Edward Moss, an attorney for Hoffman-LaRoche.

He asked Moody to require Bishop and Johnson turn over all records before dismissing the case. Moody did not grant his request.

Neither Bishop nor Johnson could be reached for comment.

They sued in April 2002, saying Charles Bishop never showed any signs of depression before he started taking Accutane.

But Hoffman-LaRoche disputed their claims and said Charles Bishop was a troubled young man.

Included in their court filings is a psychiatric analysis outlining a family history of mental problems, including a 1982 suicide pact between Julia Bishop and her husband in which they promised to stab one another. She did stab him but he survived.

Earlier in the day, they had tried to kill themselves by carbon monoxide poisoning, the report said.

Julia Bishop was later hospitalized and diagnosed with substance abuse and borderline personality disorder, according to the report.

Accutane, used by about 5-million Americans, has been blamed for increased rates of suicide and gastrointestinal diseases in some users, and birth defects in babies whose mothers took the drug while pregnant. But Hoffman-LaRoche disputes those claims.

In November 2004, federal regulators toughened rules on Accutane, requiring doctors and pharmacists who dispense the drug to register patients on a central database.

In an e-mail request for comment, Roche spokeswoman Shelley Rosenstock said the Bishop suit was one of several that have been withdrawn. She cited a case in Austin, Texas, which also had been dismissed, and an Oklahoma case where the jury ruled in the company's favor.

"Roche confirms that this lawsuit has been dismissed at the request of the Bishop family, with no payment required from Roche, " Rosenstock said. "As we have said, and continue to say, there is no reliable scientific basis to conclude that Accutane causes depression or suicide."

Carrie Weimar can be reached at 813 226-3416 or cweimar@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 27, 2007, 23:40:26]