Hair Relaxer Lawsuit MDL Status Hearings Scheduled Throughout 2026

Lawyers are also preparing for a “Science Day” hearing, designed to explain evidence linking hair relaxers and cancer to the MDL judge.

With the first bellwether trials expected to take place in 2027, the U.S. District Judge presiding over all federally filed hair relaxer lawsuits brought by women diagnosed with uterine cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries, has scheduled a series of status hearings throughout 2026, to keep the court updated on progress in the litigation.

Cosmetics manufacturers like L’Oreal, Revlon and Strength of Nature face about 11,000 product liability lawsuits over the failure to warn about cancer risks associated with widely used chemical hair straighteners, including Just for Me, Dark & Lovely, and Optimum.

Lawsuits began to be filed after a 2022 National Institutes of Health study found that women who used chemical hair straighteners more than four times a year were over twice as likely to develop uterine cancer compared to those who did not. Additional research has linked certain ingredients, such as phthalates, parabens and formaldehyde-releasing agents to hormonal disruption and tumor growth in reproductive tissues.

By 2023 there were enough claims filed that a hair relaxer lawsuit MDL (multidistrict litigation) was formed in the Northern District of Illinois under U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland, who is presiding over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

In hopes of quickly resolving the litigation, Judge Rowland has directed the parties to prepare 32 hair relaxer lawsuits to serve as potential bellwether cases for a series of early trial dates. These trials are designed to give the parties a sense of how juries are likely to respond to evidence and testimony that would be repeated throughout the litigation.

Last week she met with representatives of plaintiffs and defendants to update the court on the status of the litigation, during which the parties indicated they have started scheduling depositions for plaintiffs in the potential bellwether trial cases, and are working on agreements that would allow new general causation experts to be added to the list of potential witnesses in the litigation at a later date.

Previous schedules for hair relaxer lawsuits have indicated that the first bellwether trials will not likely be ready until mid-2027. In a docket entry (PDF) filed on November 10, Judge Rowland laid out a schedule of case management conferences throughout 2026, to be held on:

In another docket entry (PDF) filed on November 5, the day before the status conference, Judge Rowland called for the parties to be prepared to discuss holding a Science Day but gave no time frame.

In complex product liability litigation, it is common for courts to schedule such scientific presentations to educate the court about issues and concepts that will come up during the proceedings. The presentations are designed to be educational, not adversarial, and typically are not part of the official record or subject to cross examination.

While the outcome of any early test trials will not be binding on other claims, they will be closely watched by the parties and are expected to heavily influence any negotiations to reach hair relaxer lawsuit settlements, which may be necessary to avoid the need for thousands of individual trials to be scheduled in courts nationwide in the coming years.

To stay up to date on this litigation, sign up to receive hair relaxer lawsuit updates sent directly to your inbox.