Hair Relaxer Case Management Conferences To Be Held Throughout 2025 To Review Progress of Discovery

As a growing number of hair relaxer lawsuits continue to be filed by women diagnosed with uterine cancer, endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer, the U.S. District Judge presiding over the litigation has referred all discovery disputes to a Federal Magistrate Judge, who will hold a series of case management conferences over the next year to keep the litigation on track and help the parties prepare claims for trial.

The litigation emerged in late 2022, following the publication of a study that highlighted a link between use of hair relaxers and uterine cancer, finding that women who regularly used the products face a 156% increased risk compared to women who did not use hair relaxers.

Over the past two years, about 9,500 product liability lawsuits have been filed against the manufacturers of various different hair straighteners, including Dark & Lovely, Just for Me and other perm kits, each raising similar allegations that women were not adequately warned about the long-term risks they may face from endocrine disrupting chemicals in the hair relaxers.

Given similar questions of fact and law raised in claims filed throughout the federal court system, the lawsuits have been centralized before U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland in the Northern District of Illinois since February 2023, as part of a hair relaxer injury lawsuit MDL, or multidistrict litigation.

As part of the coordinated management of the cases, the parties are currently engaged in a discovery process, which involves the exchange of information relevant to all claims.  Once that is complete, it is expected that Judge Rowland will hold a series of “bellwether” trials to help gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony throughout the litigation.

According to a schedule established by Judge Rowland, the parties are expected to complete written discovery in the hair relaxer lawsuits by February 28, 2025, with oral fact discovery completed by September 30, 2025. However, a number of issues and disputes have arisen between the parties as the discovery process moves forward.

To address these disputes more expediently, Judge Rowland issued a docket entry (PDF) on October 25, appointing Magistrate Judge Beth W. Jantz to help shepherd the parties through the discovery process and resolve issues that may arise, without the need for extensive briefing or raising the disputes with the court. However, Judge Jantz was not given authority to extend any discovery deadlines that have been established.

During an initial status hearing with the Magistrate Judge on October 30, the parties reported that they expect to meet the approaching written discovery deadline at the end of February 2025. However, as oral depositions get underway, additional issues may arise.

To keep the litigation on track, Judge Jantz issued an order (PDF) last week, scheduling a series of hair relaxer case management conferences to review the progress of discovery and disputes that arise, including:

• November 14, 2024
• January 9, 2025
• February 13, 2025
• March 27, 2025
• April 24, 2025
• May 29, 2025
• June 26, 2025
• July 31, 2025
• September 4, 2025
• October 9, 2025
• November 6, 2025
• December 11, 2025

Hair Relaxer Cancer Lawsuit Bellwether Trials

Late last year, Judge Rowland directed the parties to propose competing hair relaxer lawsuit bellwether trial plans, outlining a process for selecting a group of representative cases to go through case-specific discovery in preparation for early trial dates. However, the Court is continuing to work through a number of disagreements regarding the selection of representative claims, as well as the timing for when the first trials should begin.

While the outcome of any early test trials held for these bellwether cases will not have any binding impact on other claims in the MDL, they will be closely watched and the average hair relaxer lawsuit payouts awarded by juries is likely to have a substantial impact on what the manufacturers may be required to pay to avoid the need for thousands of individual cases to go before juries in the future.

Following coordinated discovery in the MDL and any early bellwether trials, if the parties fail to negotiate hair relaxer settlements for individuals diagnosed with uterine cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and other complications, Judge Rowland may later remand each individual lawsuit directly filed in the MDL back to the U.S. District Court where it would have originated for a separate trial.