Hair Relaxer Lawsuit Plaintiffs Tell Court Manufacturers Have Not Turned Over Complete Details on Toxic Products

Attorneys representing plaintiffs pursuing hair relaxer cancer lawsuits are telling a federal judge that the manufacturers have failed to produce key information necessary for the cases to move forward, nearly a year after the court ordered the data to be turned over.

Nearly 10,000 product liability claims have been filed against L’Oreal, Namaste Laboratories and other cosmetics manufacturers since late 2022, each alleging that toxic ingredients in popular hair straighteners, such as Dark & Lovely, Just for Me and Optimum Care, caused women to develop uterine cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries.

The litigation emerged after the publication of a study in October 2022, which highlighted a link between endocrine disrupting chemicals in 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 them.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in complaints brought throughout the federal court system, the claims have all been centralized in the Northern District of Illinois before U.S. Judge Mary Rowland, for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings as part of a hair relaxer lawsuit MDL, or multidistrict litigation.

As part of the coordinated management of the litigation, the parties are currently engaged in a discovery process that will continue through most of 2025, involving the exchange of information and documents relevant to all claims. Once that is complete, it is expected that Judge Rowland will prepare a a series of “bellwether” cases for early trials, which will be used to help gauge how juries may interpret evidence and expert testimony that will be repeated throughout large numbers of claims.

In November 2023, Judge Rowland ordered 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 parties have been unable to agree on several key points regarding the selection of representative claims, as well as when the bellwether process should get underway.

Hair Relaxer Lawsuit Discovery Disputes

According to a joint status report (PDF) submitted on December 6, plaintiffs indicate that efforts to prepare claims for trial have been hampered by the manufacturers’ failure to turn over requested and necessary records in a timely manner.

Some of the information requested includes the brand names for all hair relaxer products sold by each of the companies, the years they were available on the market, the instructions provided for safe use of the products, and a complete list of chemicals and ingredients in the hair relaxers.

“Judge Rowland ordered that final and complete responses to those sets of discovery be provided no later than February 28, 2024 (10 months ago),” plaintiffs state in the report. “However, that information is not complete for all Defendants.”

The plaintiffs have requested that the court order defendants to turn over the information within the next two weeks. However, manufacturers maintain that is not enough time, and suggest that the plaintiffs’ requests for information have frequently changed throughout the litigation process.

“Defendants understand that discovery is an evolving issue and that it benefits all parties and the Court to have a clear understanding of areas of dispute. In this instance, however, Defendants simply have not been afforded a reasonable opportunity to properly engage with Plaintiffs on the issues now presented to this Court,” defendants wrote. “Given the belated, extensive and ever-evolving nature of Plaintiffs’ General Issue, if the Court requests a substantive response from Defendants, they request additional time to prepare that response.”

The status report comes ahead of a conference scheduled for tomorrow, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth W. Jantz, who is expected to hear the parties’ positions and likely render a ruling.

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 in the future.