Hair Relaxer Daubert Ruling: Judge Admits Key Cancer Expert as Final Five MDL 3060 Bellwethers Are Set

The hair relaxer Daubert ruling came down on Thursday, October 22, 2026, and it went mostly the plaintiffs' way: U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland of the Northern District of Illinois refused to exclude the plaintiffs' lead epidemiologist, Dr. Cote, who will tell juries that chemical hair relaxers can cause uterine and ovarian cancer, and she granted the defendants' challenge to a second general causation expert, Mr. Atwood, only in part. The decision keeps the 12,381-case federal litigation, In re Hair Relaxer Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3060, on course for bellwether trials in 2027, and on the same day the court fixed the final five cases from which those trials will be drawn.

The order does not end the fight over the science. The defendants moved in May to exclude ten general causation experts, and the court's October 22 rulings, which Mealey's describes as a pair, address two of them; reports from the docket say rulings on the rest are still to come. But the expert at the center of the plaintiffs' case, the one who reads the epidemiology and says it shows causation, has survived the gate that ended the federal acetaminophen litigation in the district court three years ago. For the defendants, led by L'Oréal USA, Revlon and Strength of Nature, that removes the cleanest route to dismissing the docket wholesale. And one day later, Minnesota became the second state to sue L'Oréal over hair relaxer cancer warnings, opening a front where causation does not have to be proven at all.

What did the judge decide in the hair relaxer Daubert ruling?

Judge Rowland denied the defendants' motion to exclude the general causation opinions of Dr. Cote, the plaintiffs' epidemiology expert, and granted it in part as to Mr. Atwood. A plaintiff-side summary of the docket identifies the decision as Dkt. 2079 and describes it in exactly those terms: denied as to Dr. Cote, granted in part as to Mr. Atwood. DiCello Levitt, whose partner Diandra "Fu" Debrosse Zimmermann is one of the four plaintiffs' co-lead counsel in the MDL, described the decision in an October 26 release as a 65-page opinion that "rejected significant challenges" to the plaintiffs' science.

Three holdings matter most, on the reported descriptions of the opinion:

• The epidemiology is admissible. The court found that Dr. Cote reliably evaluated the epidemiological studies examining associations between hair relaxer use and uterine and ovarian cancer. That is the core of the plaintiffs' general causation case. An epidemiologist who survives Rule 702 can tell a jury that the observational literature, typically weighed against the Bradford Hill considerations, supports the conclusion that the product is capable of causing the disease.
• Mechanism testimony largely survives. According to DiCello Levitt, the court permitted substantial portions of a second expert's testimony on the biological mechanisms through which chemicals in relaxers may contribute to cancer. The Dkt. 2079 summary records that the motion was granted in part as to Mr. Atwood. Public reporting does not specify which of Mr. Atwood's opinions were cut.
• Finished products can be studied as finished products. The opinion, as DiCello Levitt describes it, holds that experts may evaluate the potential cancer-causing effects of chemical hair relaxers as finished products without necessarily identifying a single responsible ingredient or a precise combination of chemicals, provided their opinions rest on reliable scientific methods.

The opinion itself had not been posted to a free public repository when this article was prepared, and the published descriptions come from a plaintiffs' firm, a plaintiffs' firm docket summary and a paywalled Mealey's report. Those sources agree on the outcome for both experts. Practitioners relying on the reasoning, rather than the result, should read the opinion on the MDL docket, No. 1:23-cv-00818.

Which hair relaxer experts were allowed to testify?

Dr. Cote, the plaintiffs' epidemiologist, was allowed to testify in full on general causation, and Mr. Atwood was allowed to testify in part. That is the complete list of rulings the public record supports as of October 27, 2026.

Both names appear in the record of the defendants' joint Rule 702 motion. The May 2026 joint status report filed in the MDL lists the general causation experts whose testimony the defendants moved to exclude on May 5, 2026, and Stanley T. Atwood is among them. The motion was fully briefed on June 16, 2026, and sat under submission for more than four months before the October 22 ruling.

The roles of the two experts are different, and the difference explains why the outcomes diverged:

Expert	Role in plaintiffs' case	Ruling (Oct. 22, 2026)	What it means
Dr. Cote	Epidemiology: reads the observational studies and concludes relaxers can cause uterine and ovarian cancer	Motion to exclude denied	The plaintiffs' central causation witness can testify
Mr. Atwood	Second challenged general causation expert; reporting ties the surviving testimony to biological mechanism	Motion granted in part	Some opinions are out; reports describe substantial mechanism testimony as surviving
Remaining challenged experts	Other general causation opinions among the ten challenged	Not yet ruled on, per docket summaries	Further rulings expected before case-specific motions are decided

An epidemiologist carries more weight than any other witness on general causation because the law treats epidemiology as the best evidence that an exposure causes a disease in humans. Mechanism evidence, which explains how the chemicals could produce a tumor, supports the epidemiology but rarely substitutes for it. A court that admits the epidemiologist and trims the mechanism expert has preserved the part of the case that matters most at trial.

Did the court rule on all of the general causation experts?

No. The defendants' May 5, 2026 motion targeted ten general causation experts, and the October 22 rulings address two. Mealey's, in a report published October 27, describes the court as having partly ruled on the exclusion motion and as having denied it in part as to two of the ten experts. A plaintiff-side docket summary states that the court has not yet ruled on the plaintiffs' remaining general causation experts.

Splitting a Rule 702 ruling is unusual but not unprecedented in an MDL of this size. It lets the judge decide first the opinions on which the rest depend. If the epidemiologist had been excluded, the remaining experts, whose opinions build on her reading of the literature, would have had little to stand on. Deciding Dr. Cote first answers the threshold question, and the remaining rulings now concern how much supporting testimony each side gets to present rather than whether the case survives.

The defendants can still win narrower victories. Exclusion of specific opinions on particular cancers, particular chemical constituents or particular dose thresholds could shrink the case a jury hears and could narrow which claimants are eligible for any eventual settlement. But the opening for a docket-wide General Causation dismissal, the outcome that defense counsel in every pharmaceutical and consumer product MDL now pursues under amended Rule 702, has largely closed.

Do hair relaxer plaintiffs have to prove which chemical caused their cancer?

Not at the general causation stage, if the opinion is as DiCello Levitt describes it. The court held, on that account, that experts may assess the cancer-causing potential of chemical relaxers as finished products, without isolating one ingredient or a precise combination of chemicals, so long as their methods are reliable.

This was one of the defendants' central arguments. Chemical straighteners are complex formulations. Litigation trackers and the plaintiffs' pleadings point to several categories of constituents, including phthalates and parabens that act on the endocrine system and, in some products, formaldehyde or formaldehyde-releasing agents. The defense position was that an expert who cannot say which chemical causes cancer, at what dose, has no reliable basis to say that the product does. The plaintiffs answered that women used the finished products, the epidemiology studied users of the finished products, and nothing in Rule 702 requires the science to be ingredient-specific when the exposure is to a mixture.

The finished-product holding has consequences beyond this MDL:

• For the bellwether trials, it means the plaintiff need not run a constituent-by-constituent toxicology case, which would have multiplied the expert work and given each defendant a separate argument that its formulation lacked the implicated chemical.
• For Product Identification, it shifts weight toward proof of which brands a plaintiff used and how often, and away from proof of what was inside each jar. Plaintiffs with long, multi-brand histories, the norm in this inventory, benefit most.
• For other consumer product mass torts, it is persuasive authority for treating a mixture exposure as a single exposure for general causation purposes. Defendants will argue it is confined to its record. Plaintiffs' counsel in other formulation cases will cite it.

The holding does not dispense with specific causation. Each plaintiff will still need a case-specific expert to rule in relaxer use and rule out other risk factors, such as obesity, age at menarche and menopause, or hormone therapy, for her own cancer. Case-specific Daubert Challenge motions and summary judgment motions in the bellwether cases are due in mid-November or mid-December 2026, depending on which published schedule is correct.

What is the science behind the hair relaxer lawsuits?

The plaintiffs' general causation case is built on observational epidemiology, led by an analysis of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Sister Study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in October 2022. The study followed 33,497 women aged 35 to 74 for almost 11 years, during which 378 uterine cancers were diagnosed. Women who had used straightening products more than four times in the prior year had more than double the uterine cancer risk of women who had never used them. The National Institutes of Health estimated cumulative uterine cancer risk by age 70 at 1.64% for never-users and 4.05% for frequent users, and reported that about 60% of participants who had used straighteners in the previous year identified as Black women.

That last figure explains the shape of the litigation. The plaintiffs are overwhelmingly Black women, and the products at issue (Dark and Lovely, Optimum, Mizani, Motions, Just for Me, Creme of Nature and others) were marketed heavily to Black consumers and, in some lines, to children. Both state attorney general actions frame the case as one of deceptive marketing to a specific community.

The defense critique of the epidemiology is the standard one for observational research. The Sister Study is one cohort; use was self-reported without brand or formulation detail; the absolute number of cancers is modest; and residual confounding cannot be ruled out. Under the December 1, 2023 amendments to Federal Rule of Evidence 702, those criticisms are supposed to be weighed by the judge, who must find by a preponderance that the expert's opinion reflects a reliable application of reliable methods to sufficient facts. Judge Rowland's ruling means she found Dr. Cote's analysis met that standard. The criticisms do not disappear; they go to the jury as matters of weight.

How the hair relaxer Daubert ruling fits the MDL timeline

The October 22 decision is the most consequential order in the litigation since the JPML centralized it, and it lands at the end of a sequence that has been building for more than three years. The dates below come from the docket entries reported by litigation trackers and earlier coverage of the MDL.

Date	Event
Oct. 17, 2022	Sister Study analysis on straighteners and uterine cancer published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute
Feb. 6, 2023	JPML centralizes the federal cases as MDL No. 3060 before Judge Rowland in Chicago
Mar. 2, 2023	Court appoints co-lead counsel Diandra "Fu" Debrosse Zimmermann (DiCello Levitt), Ben Crump, Fidelma Fitzpatrick (Motley Rice) and Michael London (Douglas & London)
Nov. 2023	Court rejects the defendants' preemption argument and largely denies their motion to dismiss
Apr. 22, 2024	Co-lead counsel reappointed, with Edward Wallace as liaison counsel
Sept. 30, 2024	Court mostly denies motions to dismiss and to strike class claims
Jan. 8, 2026	Science Day held before Judge Rowland
May 5, 2026	Defendants file joint Rule 702 motion to exclude ten general causation experts
June 16, 2026	Rule 702 briefing closes
Sept. 2026	First bellwether trial set for September 2027; Arizona sues L'Oréal
Oct. 7, 2026	Hearing on PFS deficiencies and cases filed for deceased plaintiffs; dismissals follow
Oct. 22, 2026	Dr. Cote admitted; Mr. Atwood limited in part; final five bellwethers named
Oct. 23, 2026	Minnesota sues L'Oréal and SoftSheen-Carson

Two features of that record stand out. The first is how consistently the court has denied the defendants' threshold motions: preemption in 2023, the motions to dismiss and to strike class allegations in 2024, and now the central Rule 702 challenge. None of those rulings decides liability, but together they describe a court that has repeatedly required the defendants to meet the plaintiffs' evidence on the merits rather than end the case on a gateway issue. The second is the pace. Four months and six days passed between the close of Rule 702 briefing and the decision, which is not long for a reported 65-page opinion on the central causation experts, and the court used the interval to keep the bellwether workup moving rather than stay it.

Who are the hair relaxer defendants?

The defendants on the bellwether track are the manufacturers whose products appear most often in the federal plaintiffs' use histories: L'Oréal USA and its SoftSheen-Carson unit, Revlon, Strength of Nature, and the Namaste and Dabur entities, among others. The brands most frequently identified in the inventory include Dark and Lovely, Optimum, Mizani, Creme of Nature, Just for Me, Motions, African Pride, TCB and ORS Olive Oil. A later-added group, the Second Wave defendants, reported to include Advanced Beauty Systems, Bronner Bros., Dudley Beauty, John Paul Mitchell Systems, Murray's Worldwide and Wella, is on a separate discovery track under Case Management Order No. 24 that runs to July 15, 2027.

The general causation ruling applies to all of them. Because the court admitted Dr. Cote's opinions about relaxers as a product category, no defendant can argue at the general causation stage that the epidemiology does not reach its own formulation. Each defendant's individual arguments now move to the case-specific stage: whether a given plaintiff used its products, for how long, and whether its warnings or formulations differed from the others' in ways a jury should weigh. L'Oréal, which faces both state attorney general actions and, on HarrisMartin's reporting, the first federal trial, carries the most concentrated exposure.

Is the hair relaxer lawsuit still going after the Daubert ruling?

Yes. The hair relaxer lawsuit is still going, and the October 22 ruling makes the federal litigation materially more durable than it was a week ago. Before the ruling, every tracker and intake page carried the same caveat: the Rule 702 motion could end the MDL. With the epidemiologist admitted, that risk has fallen sharply, though it has not reached zero while the remaining expert rulings and case-specific motions are pending.

The comparison every hair relaxer practitioner has been watching is the acetaminophen autism litigation, MDL No. 3043 in the Southern District of New York. In December 2023, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, not to be confused with the hair relaxer epidemiologist of the same surname, excluded the plaintiffs' general causation experts and entered judgment across the docket. That outcome became the defense bar's template for the amended Rule 702. It has since been partly reversed. On July 13, 2026, the Second Circuit reinstated three of the plaintiffs' experts and affirmed two exclusions, reviving more than 500 cases, and on October 16, 2026, it denied Kenvue's petition for rehearing.

Judge Rowland's ruling runs in the same direction as the Second Circuit's, but at the trial-court stage, which matters. A plaintiff-favorable appellate reversal arrives after years of delay. A plaintiff-favorable district court ruling keeps the bellwether calendar intact. The table below sets out how three large MDLs have handled the general causation gate under amended Rule 702.

MDL	Court	General causation outcome	Date	Effect
Hair relaxer, MDL 3060	N.D. Ill. (Rowland, J.)	Epidemiologist admitted; mechanism expert limited in part; others pending	Oct. 22, 2026	Bellwether track continues toward 2027 trials
Acetaminophen, MDL 3043	S.D.N.Y. (Cote, J.); 2d Cir.	Experts excluded in district court; three reinstated on appeal	Dec. 2023; July 13, 2026; rehearing denied Oct. 16, 2026	About 500 cases revived; Kenvue plans certiorari petition
Depo-Provera, MDL 3140	N.D. Fla. (Rodgers, J.)	Rule 702 and preemption motions argued in summer 2026	Master settlement July 21, 2026	Most cases channeled into settlement before a ruling

The Depo-Provera row shows the other possible path: a defendant that settles before the general causation ruling, while uncertainty still discounts claim values. The hair relaxer defendants did not take that path, and the October 22 ruling removed the discount.

What are the five hair relaxer bellwether cases?

The final five hair relaxer bellwether cases were fixed in an October 22, 2026 docket note from Judge Rowland. HarrisMartin, reporting from the docket note, identifies four of them:

Plaintiff	Case number (N.D. Ill.)	Notes
Bridget Boatwright	1:23-cv-06876	In the court-selected ten-case pool
Carrie Chattman	1:23-cv-10579	In the court-selected ten-case pool
Charlene Fennell	1:23-cv-06154	In the court-selected ten-case pool
Gloria Ford	1:23-cv-10740	The only ovarian cancer case; to be tried third, fourth or fifth
Fifth plaintiff	Not confirmed in public reporting	Drawn from the remaining pool

The five were drawn from the ten cases Judge Rowland selected herself after rejecting the parties' picks, a pool that also included Areecia Jackson, Joanne Jones, Rosa Robinson, Karla Smith, Roxanna Wade and Janette Wallace. The fifth name was not visible in any public summary of the docket note, and this article does not guess at it. Mealey's reports that the parties agreed on the final five. Earlier reports had the court narrowing the pool from ten to five in late August or early September; the October 22 entry is the one that names the cases.

Three features of the selection matter. First, four of the five are uterine or endometrial cancer cases, which mirrors the inventory: uterine and endometrial claims dominate the MDL. Second, the single ovarian case, Ms. Ford's, will not be tried first or second, so the first two federal juries will hear only uterine cancer evidence. Third, the court's original pool criteria required each case to name at least three defendants, so every bellwether will put several manufacturers' warnings in front of the jury at once.

When is the first hair relaxer trial?

The first federal hair relaxer bellwether trial is scheduled for September 2027 in Chicago. A September 24, 2026 docket entry, as reported by AboutLawsuits and other trackers, set the start for Tuesday, September 7, 2027, with monthly case management conferences from January through August 2027. A HarrisMartin report on the trial schedule gives the date as September 9, 2027, and describes the first trial as one against L'Oréal USA. The difference is two days, and both sources place it in the second week of September; the docket controls.

The October 22 ruling makes that date more reliable than it was when it was set. A trial date fixed while a dispositive Rule 702 motion is pending is a working assumption. A trial date that survives the ruling on the central causation expert is a commitment. What remains between now and jury selection:

Step	Timing	Status
Rule 702 ruling on Dr. Cote and Mr. Atwood	Oct. 22, 2026	Decided
Final five bellwether cases named	Oct. 22, 2026	Decided (fifth name not publicly confirmed)
Rulings on remaining general causation experts	Not scheduled	Pending
Case-specific Daubert and summary judgment motions	Nov. 16 or Dec. 16, 2026 (sources differ)	Upcoming
Monthly case management conferences	Jan.–Aug. 2027	Scheduled
Close of general discovery against Second Wave defendants (CMO No. 24)	July 15, 2027	Scheduled
First bellwether trial	Sept. 7 (or 9), 2027	Scheduled

State-court dockets run on their own clocks. Consolidated hair relaxer proceedings are pending in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, and in Georgia, where the Supreme Court of Georgia's October 2025 decision in Burroughs v. Strength of Nature Global, LLC held that the ten-year Statute of Repose runs from each retail sale, preserving claims by long-term users. No state trial date has been confirmed by more than one source.

How many hair relaxer lawsuits are pending?

As of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation's report dated October 1, 2026, 12,381 actions were pending in MDL No. 3060, up 252 from 12,129 a month earlier. That makes it one of the largest active product liability MDLs in the federal courts, behind the talc litigation and ahead of most pharmaceutical dockets. The JPML centralized the litigation before Judge Rowland on February 6, 2023, so the October 22 ruling arrives three years and eight months into the MDL.

The filing pace will be worth watching. General causation rulings in favor of plaintiffs typically accelerate filings, because firms that held unfiled claims pending the ruling no longer face the risk of investing in cases the court might dismiss en masse. Firms should also be aware that the court is policing the inventory: after an October 7, 2026 hearing on plaintiffs who allegedly missed Plaintiff Fact Sheet (PFS) and medical authorization obligations, and on cases filed in the names of deceased individuals, Judge Rowland ordered dismissals, some with prejudice.

Why is Minnesota suing L'Oréal over hair relaxers?

Minnesota is suing L'Oréal because, the state alleges, the company marketed chemical hair relaxers to Black women and girls while concealing evidence that the products are linked to cancer. Attorney General Keith Ellison filed the complaint on October 23, 2026, in Hennepin County District Court, one day after the federal Rule 702 ruling.

The defendants are L'Oréal USA, Inc., L'Oréal USA Products, Inc., L'Oréal S.A., L'Oréal USA S/D, Inc. and SoftSheen-Carson LLC. The complaint targets products sold under the Dark and Lovely, Optimum and Mizani brands and pleads violations of three Minnesota statutes: the Prevention of Consumer Fraud Act, the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act and the False Statement in Advertising Act. The state seeks civil penalties, restitution and an order requiring adequate health warnings before sales continue.

The complaint cites four studies linking relaxer use to elevated cancer risk. According to the state's announcement and press coverage, the studies tie relaxer use to uterine and ovarian cancer and, in at least one study, to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and to thyroid and pancreatic cancer among frequent users. Ellison alleges that L'Oréal knew about all four. A L'Oréal USA spokesperson contested the conclusions reached by the attorney general's office and said the company's products are rigorously evaluated. The allegations are unproven.

DiCello Levitt is serving as outside counsel to Minnesota, as it is to Arizona. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed the first state action, State of Arizona ex rel. Mayes v. L'Oréal USA, Inc., in Maricopa County Superior Court in September 2026, naming L'Oréal USA, its parent and SoftSheen-Carson over the same three brands.

Does the Minnesota lawsuit affect hair relaxer MDL claims?

Not directly. A state consumer protection action does not add claimants to the MDL, is not coordinated with it and does not bind Judge Rowland. But it matters in three ways:

• No causation burden. A deceptive-practices claim turns on whether the marketing misled consumers or omitted a material fact. The state does not need to prove that relaxers caused any individual's cancer, so it can litigate the warnings question without clearing the Rule 702 gate.
• Separate discovery. State enforcement discovery runs on its own calendar, and documents or deposition testimony produced there can become relevant in the MDL, subject to protective orders.
• Pattern. Two states in six weeks, both represented by the same outside firm that co-leads the MDL, signal a coordinated enforcement strategy. Further state filings would add pressure on L'Oréal that the federal calendar alone would not create. L'Oréal's U.S. unit was reported earlier this month to have retained restructuring advisers to explore separating its U.S. talc and chemical tort liabilities, which adds a corporate-structure dimension to that pressure.

Does the hair relaxer Daubert ruling mean a settlement is coming?

Not by itself, and there is no hair relaxer settlement as of October 27, 2026. No Global Settlement, Settlement Matrix, claims program or court-approved compensation figure exists in MDL 3060. Any web page quoting average hair relaxer payouts is offering an estimate, not reporting a settlement.

The ruling does change the negotiating position. Until October 22, the defendants held what amounted to an option on the whole docket: if the Rule 702 motion succeeded, the claims would be worth close to nothing. Rational defendants do not pay full value while that option is live. With the epidemiologist admitted, the option has lost most of its value, and the remaining defense levers are narrower: the outstanding expert rulings, case-specific motions, and the bellwether trials themselves.

The record of other MDLs suggests the window that has now opened is the one in which settlement programs are most often negotiated. The Depo-Provera defendants settled before the general causation ruling. In other litigations, defendants have waited for one or two bellwether verdicts to price the inventory. The hair relaxer defendants have several reasons to prefer the latter: four of the five bellwethers are uterine cancer cases, the first trial is ten months away, and the multi-defendant structure of the pool means each manufacturer will want to see how a jury apportions fault before agreeing to an allocation among them. The court signaled in July, when it lifted the stay on discovery against the Second Wave defendants, that the settlement talks then under way were not advanced enough to justify keeping that stay in place.

What it means for claimants' counsel, defendants and funders

For claimants' counsel. The hair relaxer Daubert ruling removes the largest single risk to an MDL 3060 inventory, but it does not remove the work. Firms should expect the defense to shift its fire to specific causation and Product Identification, the two issues on which individual cases now rise or fall. Case files should document brand, frequency and duration of use, the cancer diagnosis and pathology, and the client's other risk factors. The October 7 dismissals are a reminder that PFS compliance is enforced. Firms with ovarian cancer clients should note that the only ovarian bellwether will not be tried until the third trial at the earliest, so the first verdicts will speak most directly to uterine and endometrial claims. Client communications should be updated: the science has passed its first major test, trials are set for September 2027, and there is no settlement.

For defendants. The finished-product holding, if it is as reported, closes the argument that an expert must isolate a single carcinogenic constituent. The strongest remaining defenses are case-specific: alternative risk factors, gaps in product use history, and limitations and repose defenses in jurisdictions such as Georgia where Burroughs runs the clock purchase by purchase. Defendants facing the Arizona and Minnesota actions also face warning-related findings in forums with no causation element, and the plaintiffs' bar will monitor those dockets for documents. Any appellate challenge to the October 22 ruling would require an interlocutory route, such as certification under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), which MDL courts rarely grant on evidentiary rulings.

For other product defendants and their counsel. The ruling, together with the Second Circuit's acetaminophen reversal, weakens the reading of amended Rule 702 as a near-automatic exclusion tool in consumer product MDLs built on observational epidemiology. Defense strategy in formulation cases, including cosmetics, personal care products and food additives, will need to account for a district judge accepting a finished-product approach to general causation.

For litigation funders. Third-Party Litigation Funding priced on a binary general causation risk should be repriced. The probability of a docket-wide dismissal has fallen, and the time to first verdict is now anchored at September 2027. Portfolio models should weight uterine and endometrial claims more heavily than ovarian claims for near-term value, given the bellwether order, and should account for state disclosure requirements that now apply in more than 20 states.

For state attorneys general. Two states have now sued without needing the MDL's causation ruling. The federal ruling gives any state considering a similar action an additional public data point: a federal judge has found that the epidemiology linking relaxers to uterine and ovarian cancer is reliable enough for a jury to hear.

FAQ

What did the court decide in the hair relaxer Daubert ruling?

On October 22, 2026, Judge Mary M. Rowland of the Northern District of Illinois denied the defendants' motion to exclude the plaintiffs' epidemiology expert, Dr. Cote, and granted it only in part as to a second expert, Mr. Atwood, in hair relaxer MDL No. 3060. The plaintiffs' central evidence that relaxers can cause uterine and ovarian cancer can go to a jury.

Is the hair relaxer lawsuit still going?

Yes. The federal hair relaxer litigation is still active, with 12,381 cases pending as of October 1, 2026, and the October 22 ruling removed the main risk that the court would dismiss the docket on general causation grounds.

What are the hair relaxer bellwether cases?

The final five bellwether cases, set on October 22, 2026, include Bridget Boatwright, Carrie Chattman, Charlene Fennell and Gloria Ford; the fifth has not been confirmed publicly. Ms. Ford's case is the only ovarian cancer bellwether and will be tried third, fourth or fifth.

When is the first hair relaxer trial?

The first federal bellwether trial is scheduled for September 2027 in Chicago, reported as September 7, 2027 in coverage of the September 24, 2026 scheduling entry and as September 9, 2027 in other reporting.

Is there a hair relaxer settlement?

No. As of October 27, 2026, there is no global settlement, settlement matrix or claims program in the hair relaxer litigation, and no settlement amount has been announced or approved.

Why did Minnesota sue L'Oréal?

Minnesota sued L'Oréal and SoftSheen-Carson on October 23, 2026, alleging the companies deceptively marketed Dark and Lovely, Optimum and Mizani relaxers to Black women and girls while concealing cancer risks, in violation of three state consumer protection laws. The state seeks penalties, restitution and mandatory warnings; L'Oréal disputes the claims.