Hair Relaxer Lawsuit Status Conference To Be Held With MDL Judge This Week

While plaintiffs push to move forward with a bellwether process, manufacturers indicate it is still too early to select hair relaxer cancer lawsuits for early test trials.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all federal hair relaxer lawsuits will meet with lawyers involved in the litigation on Thursday, to discuss the status of discovery, pending motions and whether it is appropriate to establish a bellwether process at this time, to prepare a group of cases for early test trials.

There are currently about 8,400 product liability lawsuits pending in the federal court system against manufacturers of popular products like Dark & Lovely, Just for Me and others, each raising similar allegations that consumers were not adequately warned about the risk of uterine cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries that may be caused by the chemical hair straighteners.

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.

To help manage the large numbers of related claims, the litigation has 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. However, as lawyers move forward with discovery into common issues in the claims, the size and scope of the litigation continues to expand as women nationwide come forward with claims for cancers caused by hair relaxer chemicals.

Nearly one year ago, 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.

Ahead of a hair relaxer lawsuit status conference scheduled for October 10, plaintiffs and defendants submitted a joint status report (PDF) to update the Court on progress and roadblocks in the litigation.

On the issue of a bellwether plan, the Plaintiffs Leadership Committee indicates that it has sought to meet and confer with Defendants to discuss the implementation of a bellwether plan. However, the manufacturers maintain that they do not believe the litigation has reached the stage where it is appropriate to start selecting individual cases for the bellwether process.

“Defendants are willing to meet and confer on a future selection process for a pool of bellwether cases to undergo discovery, however, Defendants continue to believe cases are not ripe for selection at this time, given the continuing issues with timely completion of fact sheets and collection of medical records,” according to the manufacturers position statement submitted on October 3. “In addition, Defendants assert bellwether selection cannot take place until a decision on Plaintiffs Leadership’s motion to dismiss non-cancer related cases and the scope of injuries to be included in any bellwether pool is reached.”

Plaintiffs have previously sought to dismiss a number of uterine fibroid lawsuits filed in the MDL, seeking a process that would allow women to refile their claims in the future if they can establish that they experienced a cancer diagnosis. According to the joint status report submitted last week, plaintiffs indicate that this pending motion to dismiss may impact at least 411 plaintiffs with claims that do not currently involve a diagnosis of ovarian, uterine or endometrial cancer.

The joint report also indicates plaintiffs are calling for a motion to enforce discovery orders against L’Oreal, relating to the production of documents and information they need access to regarding the development and sale of Dark & Lovely, as well as other products. The parties met yesterday for a hearing on the issue before the Special Master assigned to assist in negotiations.

Once the court establishes a bellwether process, the parties will shift focus to conducting case-specific discovery on a smaller group of representative claims, which involve allegations that will be repeated throughout the litigation.

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, the average hair relaxer lawsuit payouts awarded by juries is expected 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.