Inotiv Data Breach Settlement Pays $45 With No Proof and Up to $4,000 for Fraud Losses — With No Fixed Fund to Split: Inotiv Pays Every Approved Claim in Full. Claims Are Due December 2, 2026

Between about August 5 and 8, 2025, an outside attacker got into the computer systems of Inotiv, Inc., a contract research organization in West Lafayette, Indiana that runs nonclinical drug-development studies and supplies research models. In an August 2025 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Inotiv said a threat actor “gained unauthorized access to, and encrypted certain of, the Company’s systems,” that the incident disrupted parts of its operations, and that it had notified law enforcement. On November 21, 2025 Inotiv concluded that personal information was among the data that may have been taken. It mailed breach letters dated December 2, 2025, found more affected information on December 17, and sent updated letters dated December 23, 2025.

Who got those letters is the key question, because only they are in the settlement. Inotiv’s letter says: “Inotiv maintains certain data related to current and former employees of Inotiv and their family members, as well as certain data related to other individuals who have interacted with Inotiv or companies it has acquired.” Inotiv also filed a separate sample letter written for minors with the California Attorney General. The settlement notice describes the files as ones that “may have contained personal information such as social security numbers, dates of birth, and financial information,” and the plaintiffs, as Inotiv’s own SEC filings summarize their case, allege that personally identifying information and protected health information was affected.

The class is “All persons in the United States who were sent a notice by Defendant informing them that their Private Information was compromised in the Data Breach.” In plain terms: if Inotiv sent you a breach letter, you are in; if it did not, you are not. The settlement notice mailed in September 2026 adds that “Inotiv’s records indicate that you are a Class Member.” How many people that is, the settlement website, notice and agreement do not say, and neither do the Inotiv SEC filings we read. Inotiv denies that it did anything wrong, and the court has not decided who is right.

There are four cash benefits and one protection benefit. As of September 30, 2026, the official site and notice list them this way:

• $45 alternative cash payment, no proof. “You do not have to provide any proof or explanation to claim this payment.” It is taken instead of the three payments below.
• Out-of-pocket expenses, up to $500. Fees for credit reports, credit monitoring or credit freezes, the cost of replacing IDs, postage to banks and similar costs, incurred between August 5, 2025 and September 10, 2026. You need third-party proof such as receipts; notes you wrote yourself only support other proof.
• Identity theft or fraud losses, up to $4,000. The loss has to be more likely than not caused by the breach, fall in the same window, not already be covered by the other two categories, and you must have tried to get the money back — the agreement names “exhaustion of all of the Settlement Class Member’s credit monitoring insurance and identity theft insurance.”
• Lost time, up to $80. Up to four hours at $20 an hour, with a short written description and a signed statement that the time was spent dealing with the breach.

The three documented categories can be combined, so the most one person can recover in cash is $4,580, by our arithmetic. Separately, every class member can sign up for two years of CyEx Medical Shield Complete, which the notice says comes with “$1 million of medical identity theft insurance” and watches for exposure of health-insurance ID and medical record numbers and for unauthorized Health Savings Account spending. It can be claimed on top of any cash option. (The settlement agreement itself describes the service more generally, as credit monitoring with one of the three major bureaus and at least $1,000,000 of identity theft insurance.)

Two terms matter more than the headline numbers. First, there is no fixed fund to divide. The agreement obliges Inotiv to pay “an amount sufficient to satisfy the full amount of Approved Claims,” and it pays notice and administration costs, the lawyers’ fees and the service awards on top of that — so payments are not cut pro rata as more people file. Second, a documented claim cannot leave you below the flat payment: “If any claim for Ordinary Expenses, Extraordinary Losses, or Lost Time is finally denied, other than for the claimant not being a Settlement Class Member, or is approved in an amount less than $45.00, the claimant shall be treated instead as having made a valid claim for an Alternative Cash Payment.” Before a documented claim is denied, the administrator must give you 21 days to fix it. By our reading, anyone in the class who files a valid claim ends up with at least $45.

The claim deadline is December 2, 2026. File online at InotivDataBreachSettlement.com, or print the claim form and mail it to Inotiv Data Breach Settlement, c/o Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 25226, Santa Ana, CA 92799-9958; the claim form also allows emailing an image of the completed form to info@InotivDataBreachSettlement.com. One claim per person. The form asks for a Login ID “(if known)”, and you sign it under penalty of perjury. One inconsistency to know about: the website and notice say a mailed form must be postmarked by December 2, 2026, while the printed claim form says paper forms must be received by that date. Filing online, or mailing well ahead, avoids the question. Cash can be paid by PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, virtual prepaid card or paper check.

Opting out keeps your right to sue Inotiv yourself and means no settlement benefits. The deadline is November 2, 2026: a request with the case name and number, your full name, mailing address, telephone number and email address, your personal signature and the words “Request for Exclusion,” sent to the administrator at the same P.O. box, marked ATTN: Exclusion Request. The notice says it must be “submitted, postmarked, or emailed by November 2, 2026.” Each person can only exclude themselves.

Objecting is for class members who stay in but disagree with the deal. A complete written objection must be filed with the Clerk of the Court, Community Justice Campus, 675 Justice Way, Indianapolis, IN 46203, by November 2, 2026, with a copy to the administrator marked ATTN: Objections. Class counsel — CohenMalad, LLP — will ask for up to $275,000 in fees and costs and $2,000 for each of the three class representatives, all paid by Inotiv; the agreement requires that request to be filed at least 14 days before the objection deadline, which by our count means by October 19, 2026.

The final approval hearing is set for December 3, 2026, at 11:45 a.m. Eastern, by videoconference, and the notice warns the date and time may change. Nothing is paid before then: “Settlement payments will be distributed if the Court grants final approval, and after any appeals are resolved.” Once the approval is final, Inotiv has 21 days to fund the approved claims, and the administrator pays within 30 days of the approval becoming final or of a claim’s approval, whichever is later. Checks are void 181 days after issue. If you do nothing, you get nothing and still give up the right to sue over the breach.

Class members may hold two pieces of mail about this breach, and they are different things. The first came from Inotiv in December 2025: the breach notice itself, offering 24 months of Experian IdentityWorks with an enrollment deadline of March 31, 2026 and a call center at (833) 918-5956. That offer is Inotiv’s own and is separate from the settlement. The second is the court-approved settlement notice, which the settlement website lists as mailed on September 3, 2026. It opens with: “A court has authorized this notice. This is not a solicitation from a lawyer. You are not being sued.”

The genuine settlement materials carry these markers: the case name Doyal v. Inotiv Inc. and number 49D01-2604-CE-020713; “CaseID: 9656” in the footer; the website InotivDataBreachSettlement.com, whose documents are hosted on cw.simpluris.com; the toll-free line (877) 723-7093, answered 24/7; the address P.O. Box 25226, Santa Ana, CA 92799-9958; and the administrator Simpluris, Inc. The notice states: “You will not be charged for Class Counsel’s services,” and the $45 payment requires no documents at all, so a message asking you to pay a fee is not part of this settlement, and claims go only to the official site, the P.O. box or the administrator’s email. If you are unsure whether you are in the class, the notice says the administrator gives free help.

Do not confuse this with Inotiv’s shareholder case. Inotiv settled a separate securities class action in 2025; that court granted final approval on January 27, 2026. It covered investors and has nothing to do with the breach.

The first lawsuit, Doyal v. Inotiv, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana on August 21, 2025 — before Inotiv had sent a single breach letter. Merrell followed on August 25 and Wagner on September 2; the cases were consolidated. The plaintiffs sued for negligence, negligence per se, breach of implied contract and unjust enrichment on November 26, 2025, and added invasion of privacy on January 30, 2026. Inotiv moved to dismiss on February 13, 2026, arguing in part that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring certain of their claims in federal court. “The motion was never ruled upon.”

The parties mediated at JAMS on March 5, 2026 without a deal that day and kept negotiating. To “eliminate any issues relative to jurisdiction to sue in federal court,” they agreed to dismiss the federal case and refile it in the Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis, where the settlement agreement was filed on May 27, 2026. The proposed orders filed with it are drafted for Judge Christina Klineman of the Indiana Commercial Court (Marion Superior Court No. 1). Inotiv is represented by Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

Whatever the forum, the benefits — a $45 floor, reimbursements paid in full rather than from a shared pot, and medical identity monitoring — are fixed in the agreement. What is not public is the size of the class, and with it Inotiv’s total cost. The court still has to approve the deal on December 3, 2026.