Hair Relaxer Class Action Suits: the next round of Monsanto-style product liability litigation?

Multiple class action lawsuits have been brought against manufacturers of hair relaxer products in the United States as the products allegedly contain chemicals which increase the risk of health problems, including cancer. The Bermuda Form team explore recent developments in the multi-district litigation consolidating these class action suits and related trends in product liability litigation.

Background

Since October 2022, a new series of class action suits were brought against various manufacturers of hair relaxer products, including L’oreal USA Inc., in the United States. These suits allege that the hair relaxer products contain toxic chemicals which have increased the risk of health problems such as ovarian and/or uterine cancer in women.

These allegations stem from a research paper published by the United States National Institute of Health (“NIH”) in October 2022 (“NIH Study”) which found that women who used hair relaxant products were “more than twice as likely” to develop uterine cancer than women who did not. Additionally, a separate study funded by the NIH and National Institute on Minority Health Sciences in 2021 found that frequent users of hair relaxers were more than twice as likely to develop ovarian cancer. It is pertinent to note that, unlike wider bodies of research into hair products, this study found no association with uterine cancer for other hair products like hair dyes, bleach or perms.[1]

Now, the class action suits which were launched across states like New York, California, Tennessee, Ohio, and Georgia have been condensed into a multi-district litigation (“Hair Relaxer MDL”) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division. As of August 2025, there were 10,567 pending claims in the Hair Relaxer MDL[2].

This article aims to provide a brief overview of the plaintiffs’ allegations; recent developments relating to personal jurisdiction; and explore trends in other product liability lawsuits relating to carcinogenic ingredients to consider the potential liability of hair product manufacturers.

The Lawsuits

In the Master Complaint filed on 15 May 2023, plaintiffs argued that the defendants in the litigation (including L’Oreal, Sally Beauty, and Revlon) “systematically misrepresented… the significant health impacts of hair relaxer use”, thereby failing to take reasonable steps to protect plaintiffs from harm. Instead, the hair relaxer products were advertised in media “predominantly consumed by Black and Brown women” despite manufacturers “having knowledge that the hair relaxer product… contained toxic carcinogens”.

It was also noted that the relevant chemical hair products often contained formaldehyde, metals, phthalates, lye, and parabens, which are carcinogenic ingredients known to “disrupt and/or harm a woman’s endocrine system”. As the hair straightening process can cause burns and lesions on the scalp, this process may have allowed the alleged carcinogenic ingredients to enter the body. Although the defendant manufacturers used words such as “organic”, “natural”, or “nourishing” in their marketing, suggesting that the products used natural ingredients (i.e. argan oil or olive oil) and lacked toxic chemicals, plaintiffs argued that these affirmative statements were made when defendants should have known of the “true danger” of their products.  

A grand total of fifteen causes of action were brought under common law, state law and federal law, including (but not limited to):

• negligence;
• negligent misrepresentation;
• breach of implied warranty of merchantability;
• breach of express warranty;
• fraudulent misrepresentation; and  
• fraudulent concealment.

In November 2023, Judge Mary Rowland denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss the Master Complaint, noting in particular that the plaintiffs’ claims were not pre-empted by the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act nor were their general negligence claims insufficiently substantiated as the allegations “give rise to the inference that defendants’ conduct proximately caused plaintiffs’ injuries”, and clearly state that defendants’ “knew or should have known phthalates and other [endocrine-disrupting] chemicals” in the hair relaxer products increased the risk of cancers and other health issues.

As of 9 May 2025, 32 cases were picked by way of the bellwether selection process (with 16 cases chosen by the plaintiffs and defendants each). The discovery process for the 32 cases has begun, though various document production disputes also came to the forefront of the litigation (i.e. whether plaintiffs could request documents submitted by L’Oreal to regulatory agencies outside of the US). Notwithstanding the inception of the discovery process, it does not appear that jury trials will begin until at least early 2027, as expert discovery is only set to conclude by October 2026.

Jurisdictional Issues

Turning to two recent orders in the Hair Relaxer MDL, Judge Rowland dismissed both the French parent company of L’Oreal USA Inc. – L’Oreal S.A. – and Walgreens Co. as defendants, though the latter had only been named as a defendant in one claimant’s suit.

Though the U.S. District Court found that the plaintiffs properly stated their claims in the Master Complaint, the plaintiffs were unable to keep all defendants on the hook for their allegations. In relation to the foreign defendant L’Oreal S.A., Judge Rowland found that the “ownership of a United States patent” or “the mere existence of a licensor-licensee relationship, without more” was insufficient to establish personal jurisdiction in the US District Court.

Judge Rowland found an even more tenuous connection in relation to Walgreens Co. on 20 June 2025, noting that a “meaningful connection” between the alleged injury and defendant’s conduct had to be established. However, as the plaintiff failed to identify specific hair relaxer products purchased from Walgreens other than one purchase in 2010, no such connection was established. Other claims by the plaintiff in relation to breach of implied warranty also failed, lacking specificity as to the how the hair relaxer products bought from Walgreens were defective, thereby demonstrating the difficulty faced by plaintiffs in holding stockists liable for product liability claims. Walgreen’s role as a business stocking and selling hair relaxer products is clearly different from Walgreen’s legal obligations as a pharmacist in the opioid lawsuits, for example, where the company had a “legal responsibility to prescribe controlled substances in a safe and professional manner”[3].

It is clear from the two above cases, therefore, that the U.S. District Court have only allowed the product liability suit to proceed against US manufacturers and distributors of the hair relaxer products in dispute, rather than adjacent entities in the consumer supply chain.

Another round of Monsanto payouts?

While it is unlikely that we will see the results of the first hair relaxer bellwether trial until at least 2027, as the Master Complaint demands a jury trial and requests punitive damages, it is worth turning to the Monsanto litigation as an example of how product liability claims related to carcinogenic ingredients may result in payouts of hundreds of millions of US dollars.

In summary, the Monsanto litigation relates to lawsuits alleging that exposure to Monsanto’s herbicide ‘Roundup’ caused plaintiffs to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as one of Roundup’s main ingredients (glyphosate) was classed as “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015.

Most recently, on 25 June 2025, a Pennsylvania appeals court refused to dismiss a verdict of USD 3.5 million against Monsanto, with USD 500,000 awarded by a jury in compensatory damages and USD 3 million in punitive damages. The Pennsylvania appellate court rejected Monsanto’s contention that the USD 3 million award was “unconstitutionally cumulative” as the company had paid more than USD 100 million in punitive damages to other plaintiffs. Additionally, though Monsanto “introduced evidence at trial that it complied with industry standards and scientific consensus, and Roundup is EPA-approved”, the jury were not precluded from awarding punitive damages.

Therefore, should plaintiffs in the hair relaxer lawsuits produce sufficient expert and factual evidence to substantiate their allegations, damages owed by hair relaxer manufacturers may result in similar punitive payouts. Furthermore, as the Tennessee lawsuit in particular clearly alleges that as “Black and Brown girls and women are often victims of hair discrimination”, they were also the “overwhelming majority of consumers of hair relaxer products” and more susceptible to the risk of cancer, racial discrimination may have an effect on punitive damages awarded in jury trials.

Conclusion

Notably, though the science in relation to hair products and pesticides differ, there is a very real possibility that the Hair Relaxer MDL suits may result in high-value punitive damage awards at jury trials. However, this would depend on expert evidence brought forward by plaintiffs (i.e. available epidemiological studies regarding carcinogenic ingredients in hair relaxer products) and if the defendants’ knowledge regarding carcinogenic ingredients in the hair relaxer products is uncovered during the discovery process.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the Hair Relaxer MDL is one to watch closely as the discovery process progresses to the first few bellwether trials over the next two years.