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On March 2, Judge Rowland issued an order (PDF) appointing a group of 35 hair relaxer injury lawyers to plaintiffs’ leadership positions. Four of the attorneys have been assigned to serve as co-lead counsel; one as plaintiffs’ liaison counsel; nine will serve on the Plaintiffs Executive Committee; and 21 additional attorneys will sit on a Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee.
One of the lawyers assigned to the serve as co-lead counsel is Ben Crump, a well-known civil rights attorney who has represented African American plaintiffs nationwide, often in police brutality lawsuits. Many of the injury claims involve allegations that hair relaxer manufacturers specifically marketed their products to Black women, often starting at a young age, despite knowing their products likely carried increased health risks.
These MDL leadership lawyers will take certain actions during the coordinated pretrial proceedings that benefit all women pursuing a hair relaxer injury claim, including conducting discovery and depositions into common issues that impact all claims, arguing motions before the court and potentially negotiating hair relaxer injury settlements that establish a framework to resolve the litigation. However, each individual plaintiff will still maintain their own lawyer to meet various deadlines and establish a link between their specific injury and hair relaxer chemicals in the products they used, as well as negotiate any potential individual hair relaxer lawsuit payout.
Hair Relaxer Health Concerns
The hair relaxer litigation emerged late last year, after a study was published the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that regular users of chemical straighteners face an increased risk of uterine cancer from hair relaxers.
According to findings published in October 2022, the rate of uterine cancer was nearly three times higher for women who used perm products than among those who did not use the relaxers.
Over the months after publication of the study, at least 40 women filed a uterine cancer lawsuit, ovarian cancer lawsuit or uterine fibroid lawsuit, alleging that their injuries were caused by chemicals in a variety of popular perm products, such as Dark & Lovely, Optimum, Just for Me, ORS Olive Oil, Motions and others.
In complex product liability cases, where a large number of claims are filed throughout the federal court system by individuals who suffered similar injuries as a result of the same or similar products, it is common for the federal court system to centralize the litigation for pretrial proceedings.
As part of the coordinated management of the litigation, it is expected that Judge Rowland will establish a bellwether process, where small groups of representative injury claims will go through case-specific discovery and be prepared for early trial dates, to help gauge how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation. However, if hair relaxer and perm cancer settlements are not reached during the MDL proceedings, each case may later be remanded back to the U.S. District Court where it was originally filed for separate trials.
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