diff --git a/icu4c/source/layout/OpenTypeLayoutEngine.cpp b/icu4c/source/layout/OpenTypeLayoutEngine.cpp
index 9814c4dfe5f..fbbfc0e6846 100644
--- a/icu4c/source/layout/OpenTypeLayoutEngine.cpp
+++ b/icu4c/source/layout/OpenTypeLayoutEngine.cpp
@@ -235,6 +235,10 @@ le_int32 OpenTypeLayoutEngine::computeGlyphs(const LEUnicode chars[], le_int32 o
 
     outCharCount = characterProcessing(chars, offset, count, max, rightToLeft, outChars, fakeGlyphStorage, success);
 
+    if (LE_FAILURE(success)) {
+        return 0;
+    }
+
     if (outChars != NULL) {
         fakeGlyphCount = glyphProcessing(outChars, 0, outCharCount, outCharCount, rightToLeft, fakeGlyphStorage, success);
         LE_DELETE_ARRAY(outChars); // FIXME: a subclass may have allocated this, in which case this delete might not work...
@@ -244,6 +248,10 @@ le_int32 OpenTypeLayoutEngine::computeGlyphs(const LEUnicode chars[], le_int32 o
         //adjustGlyphs(chars, offset, count, rightToLeft, fakeGlyphs, fakeGlyphCount);
     }
 
+    if (LE_FAILURE(success)) {
+        return 0;
+    }
+
     outGlyphCount = glyphPostProcessing(fakeGlyphStorage, glyphStorage, success);
 
     return outGlyphCount;