MDL Judge Issues New Deadlines for Hair Relaxer Lawsuit Bellwether Trial Preparations

In March 2026, attorneys will give the court a list of 12 hair relaxer lawsuits to choose from for the first bellwether trials, which likely will not begin until 2027.

A federal judge says she expects to select three lawsuits by the beginning of April 2026, which parties will prepare for the first early “bellwether” trials, to test the strength of evidence that chemicals in widely used hair relaxer products have caused women to develop uterine cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries.

Cosmetics manufacturers like L’Oreal, Revlon and Strength of Nature face more than 11,000 hair relaxer lawsuits filed nationwide, each alleging that the manufacturers failed to provide warnings of cancer risks linked to chemical straighteners like Just for Me, Dark & Lovely and Optimum.

The litigation began after publication of a 2022 National Institutes of Health (NIH) study, which warned that women using chemical hair straighteners more than four times a year faced double the risk of uterine cancer than those who did not. 

Additional research has linked certain ingredients commonly used in the products, such as phthalates, parabens and formaldehyde-releasing agents to hormonal disruption and tumor growth in reproductive tissues.

In response to a wave of lawsuits being filed after the release of the NIH study, a hair relaxer lawsuit multidistrict litigation (MDL) was formed in the Northern District of Illinois in 2023, with U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland appointed to preside over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Last May, the Judge directed the parties to select a group of 32 hair relaxer lawsuits to serve as bellwether cases, which are being prepared for a series of early trial dates in the MDL. These trials are designed to give plaintiffs and defendants a sense of how juries are likely to respond to evidence and testimony that would be repeated throughout the litigation.

Over the past year, lawyers have been conducting depositions and case specific discovery in those bellwether cases, and there has been disagreement between the parties over when the court should schedule the first hair relaxer MDL trial.

Following a status conference last week, the court issued minutes (PDF) on January 29, outining a series of key deadlines needed to prepare the first claims for trial.

All fact discovery for the 32 initial cases in the bellwether pool must be completed by March 18, 2026, and the parties have been asked to submit position papers that same day, identifying 12 of the 32 cases they believe should be eligible to serve as bellwether trials.

Judge Rowland indicates that she will then select three claims by April 1, from which plaintiffs will choose one case that will be prepared for trial by April 6, followed by the defendants selecting another case by April 10.

The Court will then select a second group of three potential bellwether cases by April 15, with plaintiffs choosing one of those cases by April 24, and defendants will select another by April 30.

Additional fact discovery for the claims selected for bellwether trials will close on June 10, 2026. Previous schedules for hair relaxer lawsuits have indicated that the first bellwether trials will not likely be ready until mid-2027.

While the results of the bellwether trials will not be binding on other cases, they will be closely watched, as the outcomes could help the parties reach a hair relaxer lawsuit settlement agreement. If no such agreement is reached, Judge Rowland is likely to remand the claims back to their originating districts for individual trial dates.

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