Court Outlines Procedures When Women Die After Filing a Hair Relaxer Cancer Lawsuit

Families and estates will have 90 days to decide whether to take over a plaintiffs’ hair relaxer lawsuit after the court is notified of their death.

As the severe consequences of uterine cancer and ovarian cancer caused by hair relaxers continue to claim the lives of women pursuing lawsuits against the manufacturers of widely used chemical straighteners, the federal judge presiding over the litigation has outlined steps that must be taken for families to continue with their claims.

L’Oreal, Revlon, Strength of Nature and other cosmetics manufacturers currently face more than 11,000 product liability lawsuits brought throughout the federal court system, each involving similar allegations that manufacturers of products like Just for Me, Dark & Lovely and Optimum failed to warn women that regularly applying the hair relaxers may cause cancer to develop.

The litigation emerged after a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study was published in late 2022, which warned that women using chemical hair straighteners more than four times a year faced twice the risk of uterine cancer when compared to women who did not. Since then, further research has warned the products often contain phthalates, parabens and formaldehyde-releasing agents linked to hormonal disruption and tumor growth in reproductive tissues.

Uterine cancer primarily develops as endometrial cancer or the more aggressive uterine sarcoma. About 3% of women will be diagnosed with uterine cancer during their lifetime, resulting in roughly 65,000 new cases each year in the United States. 

While many cases are caught early, survival rates drop sharply once the cancer spreads beyond the uterus, and thousands of women die from the disease annually. Treatment often involves a hysterectomy, requiring removal of the uterus and cervix and permanently ending a woman’s ability to have children.

Unfortunately, as the litigation continues to move forward, many women are dying after filing a hair relaxer cancer lawsuit, leaving questions about what happens to the claim after their death.

Since 2023, all lawsuits brought by women who developed cancer from hair relaxer products have been consolidated as part of a federal MDL, or multidistrict litigation, where U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland is presiding over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings in the Northern District of Illinois.

Last year, Judge Rowland directed the parties to select a group of 32 hair relaxer lawsuits to serve as bellwether cases, which are being prepared for a series of early trial dates in the MDL. These trials are designed to give plaintiffs and defendants a sense of how juries are likely to respond to evidence and testimony that would be repeated throughout the litigation. However, the first trials are not expected to begin until at least 2027.

In a case management order (PDF) issued on February 18, Judge Rowland acknowledged that many women are dying after filing a hair relaxer lawsuit, and outlined procedures for how the Court will address these deaths.

According to the order, the deceased plaintiff’s family or estate will have the opportunity to step into the case, by filing a motion for substitution. Once the court is notified of the plaintiff’s death, the estate has 90 days to formally take over the lawsuit. If no motion is filed within that time, the case will be dismissed.

Judge Rowland further directed plaintiffs’ counsel to notify the court of any prior deaths within 30 days of the order, and to report future deaths within 20 days of learning about them. A formal suggestion of death must then be filed and served on all parties and relevant nonparties within 90 days.

For families who have lost a loved one while a hair relaxer lawsuit was pending, it is important to act quickly. A surviving spouse, child or court-appointed estate representative may be able to continue the claim, but strict deadlines apply. Families should contact the hair relaxer cancer lawyer handling the case as soon as possible to discuss whether a motion for substitution must be filed and what steps are required to preserve the claim.

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