L’Oreal Execs To Face More Questions Over Dark and Lovely, Hair Relaxer Cancer Risks

Manufacturer has appealed a recent ruling that executives must sit for another series of depositions in Dark and Lovely lawsuits pending in Philadelphia, even though they already faced questions in the federal hair relaxer lawsuit MDL.

A Pennsylvania judge has ordered three top L’Oréal executives to sit for depositions in the state-court litigation, which will likely include probing questions into what the company knew about the risk of cancer linked Dark and Lovely, as well as other hair relaxer products, which have been the focus of thousands of product liability lawsuits in recent years.

The executives include CEO David Greenberg, Assistant Vice President and Head of Product Safety Richard von Stein, and Chief Corporate Affairs officer for North America Matthew DiGirolamo, who will be asked to answer questions that could affect the outcomes of more than 11,000 hair relaxer cancer lawsuits currently pending in both federal and state courts nationwide.

The litigation emerged after a study was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in October 2022, which found that women who use hair relaxers more than four times per year face a 156% increased risk of developing uterine cancer. Even infrequent use of between one and four times per year was found to increase the risk of uterine cancer by 54%.

Each of the claims indicate that consumers developed reproductive cancers from hair relaxers following years of exposure to toxic chemicals in Dark & Lovely or other popular straightening products manufactured by L’Oréal and other major cosmetics companies. The lawsuits allege that the manufacturers knew, or should have known, their products increased the risk of uterine cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries, yet failed to provide adequate warning to consumers.

In Pennsylvania state court, a group of hair relaxer lawsuits are consolidated for coordinated pretrial proceedings as part of a mass tort before Administrative Judge Joshua Roberts in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The judge is expected to plan a series of bellwether trials that will give the parties an opportunity to see how juries respond to evidence and testimony likely to be repeated throughout the litigation.

In April, plaintiffs’ attorneys filed a motion to compel Greenberg, von Stein and DiGirolamo to sit down for depositions, saying their answers would be a key part of the plaintiffs’ evidence.

The manufacturer opposed the move and argued that plaintiffs failed to provide a valid reason for the depositions of the three highly-placed executives, claiming that it was a duplication of effort. The men had already been deposed as part of ongoing discovery in a federal hair relaxer lawsuit multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of Illinois, where thousands of claims filed in federal courts are consolidated before U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland. They claimed it defeated a primary purpose of the federal MDL, which was to avoid duplication of discovery.

However, in mid-May, Judge Roberts issued a court order (PDF) siding with plaintiffs, calling for von Stein to sit for a four-hour deposition within 30 days of the order. He gave DiGirolamo and Greenberg 45 days but does not mention a time limit.

On June 18, L’Oréal attorneys filed a motion to appeal (PDF) Judge Roberts’ decision, which has not yet been addressed by the Philadelphia judge.

Hair Relaxer Lawsuit Bellwether Trials

While the Pennsylvania trials are expected to begin before those at the federal level, Judge Rowland has selected 10 federal hair relaxer MDL lawsuits to move forward as bellwether trials. No trial dates have yet been scheduled by either court.

Neither the outcomes of the federal or state hair relaxer lawsuit bellwether trials will be binding on any other cases. However, the results are being closely watched as a guide for what juries see as the strengths and weaknesses of each side’s arguments, which could help the parties reach a global settlement agreement.

If the bellwether trials and pretrial proceedings end with no settlement or other resolution to the litigation, the lawsuits may be remanded back to their originating courts for individual trial dates.