Lawyers Call for Hair Relaxer Cancer Lawsuit To Be Set for Trial

As pretrial proceedings and discovery continues in thousands of lawsuits over uterine caner, endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer from hair relaxers, the first case will likely not be ready for trial until sometime in 2027.

Attorneys representing thousands of women pursuing lawsuits that allege prolonged exposure to chemicals in hair relaxers caused them to develop uterine cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries are calling for the federal judge presiding over the litigation to set a date for the first early test trial.

Major cosmetics manufacturers like L’Oreal face nearly 11,000 hair relaxer cancer lawsuits, each raising similar allegations that they withheld information about the link between cancer and hair relaxers, including popular products like Just for Me, Dark & Lovely, Optimum and others.

The litigation first began after a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) study was published in 2022, warning that chemical hair straighteners significantly increased the risk of uterine cancer. Subsequent research has linked ingredients commonly found in these products, such as phthalates, parabens and formaldehyde-releasing agents, to hormonal disruption and tumor growth in reproductive tissues.

Plaintiffs maintain that the manufacturers knew or should have known about these risks years earlier yet placed a desire for profits before the health and safety of women, particularly African American women, who the products are heavily marketed toward.

Since 2023, all hair relaxer lawsuits have been centralized as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of Illinois under U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland, who is currently presiding over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

To help manage the massive litigation and promote settlement discussions, Judge Rowland previously ordered the parties to prepare a representative sample of cases for a series of early bellwether trials, which will help gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony likely to be repeated throughout thousands of claims.

In May 2025, lawyers identified 32 hair relaxer lawsuits that consist of the bellwether discovery pool, with each of the claims involving women diagnosed with either uterine cancer, endometrial cancer or ovarian cancer following regular use of certain popular products. However, a date has not yet been scheduled for the first claim to go before a jury.

Judge Asked for First Hair Relaxer Lawsuit Trial Date

On January 22, the parties submitted a joint status report (PDF) ahead of a status conference scheduled for this Thursday.

Although lawyers for the product manufacturers continue to maintain that it is premature to discuss trial dates, plaintiffs’ attorneys are calling for Judge Rowland to set a date for the first hair relaxer lawsuit bellwether case to begin.

Once that is done, the hair relaxer injury lawyers indicate say that the parties would be able to meet and confer on a trial schedule, setting pre-trial deadlines for key events in the litigation. However, given the amount of discovery and motions that need to be addressed, the first cases are not expected to reach juries until 2027.

As the federal cases continue to move through coordinated discovery, parallel litigation is also advancing in Illinois state court. At least 400 hair relaxer cancer claims are currently pending in Cook County, where they have been consolidated for pretrial proceedings. An initial trial date previously scheduled for May 18, 2026, was vacated earlier this month, along with several others. The first Illinois bellwether trial is now set to begin on November 2, 2026, which would likely occur before any federal cases are trial-ready under the current MDL schedule.

Although verdicts in early federal and state trials will not be binding on other claims, they are expected to play a key role in shaping settlement discussions by revealing how juries respond to the evidence and testimony that will be repeated across thousands of cases.

If no global hair relaxer settlement is reached following the bellwether process, Judge Rowland is expected to eventually remand the remaining federal cases back to their original courts for individual trials.

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