Five Hair Relaxer Injury Lawsuits in Cook County, Illinois May Be Set For Trial in 2025

As discovery and pretrial proceedings continue in thousands of hair relaxer lawsuits pending in the federal court system, lawyers indicate that a state court judge in Illinois is expected to set five cases for trial next year, which may be the first to present a jury with evidence that popular chemical hair straighteners caused women to develop uterine cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries.

For decades, hair relaxer products like Dark & Lovely, Just for Me and others have been widely marketed to African-American women to help straighten their hair. However, lawsuits are now being pursued against various manufacturers and retailers, alleging that consumers were not adequately warned about serious health risks that may be caused by endocrine disrupting chemicals in the products.

The litigation emerged in late 2022, following the publication of a study that highlighted a link between use of hair relaxer 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.

Since those findings were released, nearly 8,000 product liability lawsuits have been brought in the federal court system, where they are currently centralized for discovery and pretrial proceedings before U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland in the Northern District of Illinois, as part of a hair relaxer injury lawsuit MDL, or multidistrict litigation.

However, dozens of additional cases are pending in various different state courts, including Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois, each raising nearly identical allegations that women could have avoided a cancer diagnosis if manufacturers had not placed their desire for profits before consumer safety.

In advance of a status conference scheduled before Judge Rowland on August 29, lawyers submitted a joint status report (PDF) late last week, outlining ongoing discovery issues, pending motions in the federal court system and the status of state court actions.

In addition to 7,946 hair relaxer lawsuits filed in federal courts as of August 1, the report indicates that manufacturers also face about 57 claims filed in Cook County, Illinois state court, 20 cases in Georgia state courts, two in New York state court, and six in Pennsylvania.

In Illinois state court, the cases have been consolidated before Judge Patrick T. Stanton, who is expected to issue a discovery schedule tomorrow, setting five of the consolidated cases for the 2025 trial calendar. Therefore, the parties indicate that they will be able to more fully update Judge Rowland on the pending trial dates during the in-person MDL conference on Thursday.

Illinois Hair Relaxer Lawsuits Expected to Begin Before MDL Trials

If the Illinois judge sets hair relaxer cases for trial next year, a state court jury will likely be the first to evaluate evidence in the litigation, which claims that manufacturers knew or should have known about the risk of cancer from hair relaxers, yet continued to encourage widespread use of the products among minority women.

In the federal court system, Judge Rowland has ordered the parties to propose competing hair relaxer lawsuit bellwether trial plans, outlining a process for selecting a small group of bellwether cases that will go through case-specific discovery in preparation for early trial dates, which are unlikely to make it before a jury until at least 2026.

However, the parties have been unable to agree on several key points regarding the bellwether selections, as well as when the first trials should begin, and how big a factor general causation should play in the early phases of the litigation.

While the stated intention of MDL bellwether trials is to identify the most representative lawsuits, parties in complex litigation often jockey to make selections that are most beneficial to their side, as the average hair relaxer lawsuit payouts will have a substantial impact on the amount of money the manufacturers may be required to pay to avoid the need for thousands of individual cases to go before separate juries nationwide.

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.