Hair Relaxer Lawsuit Development and Delay

MDL 3060

Claims have been consolidated into MDL 3060 In re: Hair Relaxer Marketing Sales Practices And Products Liability Litigation in the Northern District of Illinois before U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland. Plaintiffs claim that chemical hair straighteners contain harmful substances, such as formaldehyde, which causes reproductive cancers such as uterine and ovarian cancer. As of early February, both sides submitted a joint status report, indicating that plaintiffs and defendants will select a settlement mediator or special master to oversee the negotiations. And plaintiffs said they will go ahead with the Defendants’ proposal to agree to mediators by March 20, 2025, when the next joint status report is due.

Judge Rowland on February 24, again rejected Motions to Dismiss hair relaxer cancer lawsuits from John Paul Mitchell Systems, Wella, and Advanced Beauty, keeping them in the MDL. The hair relaxer makers argued that the master complaint lacked specific allegations about their products. Judge Rowland pointed out that master and short-form complaints function together as a single operative complaint and she ruled that the companies must consider allegations in both.

According to aboutlawsuits.com, hair relaxer manufacturers “propose a process whereby the parties agree that within 15-days of the selection of a neutral or neutrals, Plaintiffs provide Defendants with their theory of the case as to each particular Defendant’s liability. Thirty days thereafter, Defendants will provide a response to Plaintiffs’ statement.” The defendants proposed that the parties begin meeting to confer over possible settlement mediators or special masters by March 3. And from lawsuit-information-center.com: “The deadline to finalize mediator selections is March 20… If successful, this move could pave the way for early-stage settlement discussions in what is expected to be a complex and high-stakes resolution process.” 

Further Key Updates:

• March 27, 2025:  Case Management Conference.
• April 30, 2025:  Parties identify and exchange 20 Initial Bellwether Discovery Cases
• May 9, 2025:  Parties file joint status reports identifying Initial Bellwether Discovery Cases.

Bellwether Cases and Trials

Beyond setting the above dates, Judge Rowland has outlined numerous directives to guide the proceedings:

• More cases in the bellwether trial pool. Initially, both parties agreed to select 16 cases for bellwether discovery, with five proceeding to trial. Rowland has increased the number of cases to 40 for discovery, aiming for up to 12 to proceed to trial.
• “Eligible Cases” are plaintiffs who have filed and served short-form complaints by February 1, 2024. Only cases involving specific injuries—namely uterine, endometrial, or ovarian cancer—will be considered for the bellwether pool, which will limit the pool to approximately 5,230 cases.
• Plaintiffs who also experienced other injuries can be included in the bellwether pool, as long as they also have one of those three cancer diagnoses.
• Each party will select 20 cases for bellwether discovery, and no extensions will be granted after the deadline.
• The court has approved a continued parallel approach regarding General Causation Discovery, allowing expert discovery on general causation to proceed alongside case-specific discovery.
• In instances where a bellwether discovery case settles before trial selection, the court has granted plaintiffs the authority to unilaterally select a replacement case. This is a common MDL rule.

Judge Rowland has also called for both parties to regularly update the court on the status of settlement negotiations, which could lead to a resolution before bellwether trials are necessary. (Bellwether trials help to inform plaintiffs and defendants of the direction of the litigation and the outcome can potentially lead to a settlement.)

Formaldehyde Ban Delay

The FDA’s proposed ban on formaldehyde in hair relaxers is still on hold, this time due to an executive order from Trump that paused federal regulations. They agency in spring 2023 published a proposed federal rule to ban the chemical, then it missed its own April 2024 deadline. The FDA has considered banning formaldehyde in hair relaxers since at least 2016, when it began a series of focus groups with consumers, salon owners and stylists about formaldehyde in hair products. Remarkably, the FDA states that “Use of hair smoothing products containing [formaldehyde] is linked to short-term adverse health effects, such as sensitization reactions and breathing problems, and long-term adverse health effects, including an increased risk of certain cancers.”

Its new deadline is March 2025. Meanwhile, potentially harmful hair products are still on the market, without proper warning labels.  The European Union and Canada, however, have banned formaldehyde. More women in the U.S. will continue to use hair relaxers and many will develop life-threatening illnesses.

Melanie Benesh, vice president of government affairs at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, said that, “Even though it would have really important public health impacts across the country, I’m not confident that this is something that is going to become an FDA priority or something that we’re going to see the FDA push through.” The Group has petitioned the FDA for over ten years to regulate certain chemicals in cosmetics.

Coming Up…

With the dates set for the MDL’s bellwether trials, the first cases won’t be going to trial until 2027. While this delay is no doubt frustrating for plaintiffs, state court trials may start ahead of this schedule. And lawsuit-information-center.com reported that, once a mediator has been selected, it could pave the way for early-stage settlement discussions in what is expected to be a complex and high-stakes resolution process. Attorneys say this could pressure companies like L’Oréal and Revlon to consider settlements – but not in the next few months. A deal is easier to get done close to a trial date.