MDL Judge To Weigh Hair Relaxer Cancer Evidence in Mid-2026

Plaintiffs’ expert witnesses must convince the judge that their testimony linking hair relaxers to cancer is scientifically reliable enough to be heard by juries.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all federal hair relaxer cancer lawsuits will evaluate key evidence in the litigation next year, indicating that any challenges to the admissibility of expert witness testimony about the link between chemicals in hair relaxers and cancer must be filed by April 1, 2026, after which the Court will determine whether the opinions and findings are sufficiently sound and reliable to be presented to juries.

The outcome of those motions, commonly referred to as Daubert hearings, may help decide the fate of nearly 11,000 product liability lawsuits being pursued against the manufacturers of various different hair relaxer products, including Dark and Lovely, Just for Me and others.

Each of the lawsuits raise similar allegations, indicating that manufacturers failed to warn women that hair relaxer side effects may increase the risk of reproductive cancers, such as ovarian cancer, uterine cancer and endometrial cancer. The litigation emerged after a series of studies were published about three years ago, raising serious concerns about the safety of the products, which are widely used among African American women.

As more women learned about the link between their use of hair relaxers and cancer, the size and scope of the litigation has continued to grow rapidly over the past few years, with thousands of women now waiting for their day in court to prove that their diagnosis was the result of prior exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals in the products.

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

Early in the MDL, Judge Rowland instructed the parties to prepare a series of bellwether cases for test trials, which are designed to give participants in the lawsuits a sense of how juries are likely to respond to evidence and testimony likely to be repeated throughout the litigation.

As part of that procedure, Judge Rowland met with parties during a status hearing on September 4, granting plaintiffs’ request for additional time to make general causation expert disclosures. In a docket entry (PDF) issued that same day, the judge indicated that all expert discovery will close on March 2, 2026, and the parties must file any Rule 702 motions the next month, which would seek to prevent specific expert witnesses from being allowed to present their opinions to juries.

After the motions are filed, Judge Rowland will hear oral arguments for and against expert testimony from both sides, and determine whether the findings are scientifically sound enough to present to juries. It is common for defendants to try to have all plaintiffs’ expert witnesses dismissed, because it prevents them from presenting evidence to juries that the defendants’ product caused plaintiffs’ injuries.

However, if the plaintiffs’ expert testimony survives the hearings and defendants’ attempts at summary judgment, the bellwether trials will be cleared to go forward.

Hair Relaxer Cancer Lawsuit Bellwether Trials

In May, plaintiffs and manufacturers selected 32 hair relaxer lawsuits that will serve as the initial bellwether discovery pool, and be eligible for the first bellwether trial dates.

These claims each involve women diagnosed with uterine cancer, ovarian cancer or endometrial cancer after regular chemical straightener exposure and are expected to go through case-specific discovery and depositions over the next few years, before the parties select a smaller group of claims that will go before juries.

While the outcome of these early trials will not be binding on other women presenting a claim, they will be closely watched by lawyers involved in the litigation and may have a substantial impact on the timing and average amounts of any hair relaxer settlements offered to women diagnosed with uterine cancer, endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer in future years.

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