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Chicago to be center of massive class action hair relaxer lawsuit

Photo caption: JENNY MITCHELL (center), who filed a lawsuit against L’Oreal and other companies, speaks during a press conference while her attorney Benjamin Crump (far right) looks on.

It could get as hot as a straightening comb and as painful as the sting of a hair relaxer.

A federal court in Chicago is setting the stage for one of the largest class action lawsuits the country has seen in decades. It’s expected to involve millions of Black plaintiffs across the country and could take years or even a decade to litigate. With the potential to generate astronomical legal fees and monetary settlements, it’s a lawsuit that could grow so big it will make one’s hair curl.

At the center of the growing legal battle are some of America’s biggest hair care corporations whose products Blacks have bought and used throughout their lives: L’Oreal, Soft Sheen, Dark and Lovely and Luster Smooth Touch.

They are products whose roots are in Chicago, once the world capital of the Black hair care industry that fueled a generation of pioneering entrepreneurs whose products changed Black America.

Claude A. Barnett, Annie Malone, Madame C.J. Walker, Marjorie Stewart Joyner, Fred Luster, Sr., S.B. Fuller, George Johnson, and Edward Gardner all revolutionized the Black hair care industry in Chicago at a time when beauty in the workplace and social scene was defined by white and European standards.

Natural Black hair worn by African kings and queens was never in vogue in America. Blacks used chemicals and relaxers to achieve a sleek look that appealed to society, white employers and corporate America.

Fast forward to 2023. Black women across the country who have used the same hair relaxers for decades now face the possibility of developing uterine cancer, endometrial cancer and other health risks from phthalates, a dangerous chemical whose harmful effects were uncovered in a study by the National Health Institute.

Last October, the Institute released a Sister Study that examined nearly 34,000 women 35 to 74 years old who used hair relaxers for 11 years. About 7.4 percent or 2,512 of the participants were Black women and 4.4 percent or 1,494 were Latino. Nearly 86 percent of the participants were white.

The study confirmed 262 cases of uterine cancer among the participants, of which nearly 56 percent had a college degree or above.

While the study did not identify by race the number of women who developed uterine cancer, researchers said that Black women who had used hair relaxers for even one year were twice as likely as all other women to develop endometrial cancer. Older studies had shown that Black women who had previously used hair relaxers were also more likely to develop fibroids and ovarian cancer.

Days after the study was released, a federal lawsuit was filed last October in Chicago in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. It was filed by 11 attorneys, including Civil Rights attorney Benjamin Crump.

The plaintiff, Jenny Mitchell, is a Black woman from Waynesville, Missouri, a small Midwestern town of just over 5,400 residents. She’s the first plaintiff to file a lawsuit, but attorneys expect her complaint to balloon into a massive class action lawsuit that involves hundreds of thousands or even millions of Black women across America.

So far, hair relaxer federal lawsuits have been filed in Illinois, California, Georgia, Louisiana and New York, but court documents show there are as many as 53 claims filed in 19 different federal court districts nationwide, with L’Oreal the most commonly named defendant.

In January a special judicial panel ordered that all hair relaxer product liability lawsuits in federal courts nationwide will be consolidated into a class action, multi-district lawsuit that will be litigated under Judge Mary Rowland in the Northern District of Illinois, which is located at the Dirksen Courthouse in the Loop.

Over the next few years, complaints brought in America’s federal courts will be transferred to Judge Rowland to coordinate discovery, avoid conflicting pretrial rulings from different Courts and serve the convenience of common witnesses and parties involved in the cases.

The Court is also expected to appoint a group of hair relaxer lawyers to serve in various leadership roles during the MDL proceedings, taking certain actions that will benefit all women who have filed a lawsuit.

Law firms across the country have posted notices on their websites inviting potential victims of hair relaxers to seek their legal services.

“We imagine that we will continue representing additional women in filing cases, as will other firms, and more and more women will come forward,” said Debrosse Zimmerman, one of the attorneys representing Mitchell.

Attorney Crump in a statement said, “Generations of women of color, especially Black women, have been marketed and coerced to believe that using chemicals to straighten their hair equates to beauty.

“We know now that these chemicals are responsible for the tragic number of users’ reproductive cancer. This litigation will bring justice to these women and their families and hold corporations that put profits over people accountable for their deadly actions.”

In her 77-page lawsuit filed in Chicago, Mitchell alleged she was diagnosed with uterine cancer five years ago after she was exposed to chemicals in hair care products from L’Oreal, Soft Sheen, Strength of Nature Global and Namaste Laboratories, LLC, in Chicago. They are among 11 defendants in Mitchell’s lawsuit.

According to the complaint, “All Defendants were engaged in the research, development, manufacture, design, testing, sale, and marketing of the Products, and introduced such products into interstate commerce with knowledge and intent that such products be sold in the State of Illinois.

“At all times material hereto, Defendants developed, tested, assembled, manufactured, packaged, labeled, prepared, distributed, marketed, supplied, and/or sold the defective Products.”

Mitchell said in 2000 when she was around 10 years old, she started using on her hair, Motions, Dark & Lovely, Olive Oil Relaxer and Organic Root Stimulator. But in 2018, Mitchell said she was diagnosed with uterine cancer despite having no family history of the disease.

In her lawsuit, Mitchell applied relaxers to her scalp or had relaxers applied by a professional at a hair salon.

According to the lawsuit, Mitchell underwent a full hysterectomy at Boone Hospital Center in Columbia, Missouri, on September 24, 2018. Following this surgery, Mitchell underwent mandatory appointments every three months until 2020, when she was instructed to go to appointments every six months. Her hospital visits continue to this day.

With uterine cancer, Mitchell lost her ability to have children, suffered extreme pain and suffering, and extreme emotional distress.

As a plaintiff, Mitchell alleges the defendants committed 15 counts of business violations, including negligence and liability. Mitchell seeks more than $75,000 in damages, according to her lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, Mitchell alleges the hair care products she used during the time of sale and consummation, “were in an unreasonably dangerous and defective condition because they failed to contain adequate and proper warnings and/or instructions regarding the increased risk of cancer, including, but not limited to, breast cancer, associated with the use of the Defendants’ hair products. Defendants themselves failed to properly and adequately warn and instruct Plaintiff as to the risks and benefits of the Products, given her need for this information.

“Had Plaintiff received a warning that the use of the Products would significantly increase her risk of developing uterine cancer, she would not have used them. As a proximate result of Defendants’ design, manufacture, marketing, sale, and distribution of the Products, Plaintiff was injured catastrophically, and was caused severe pain, suffering, infertility, disability, impairment, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of care, comfort, and economic damages.”

Hair relaxers are classified as creams or lotions, which are specifically marketed to Black and brown women to “tame” their ethnic hair by making it smoother, straighter and easier to manage daily.

Home hair relaxer kits are sold in Jewel Supermarkets, Walgreens and Walmart stores.

Hair relaxers can, and often do, cause burns and lesions in the scalp, facilitating entry of hair relaxer contaminants into the body.

The main ingredient of ‘‘lye’’ relaxers is sodium hydroxide; no-lye relaxers contain calcium hydroxide and guanidine carbonate, and ‘‘thio’’ relaxers contain thioglycolic acid salts. No-lye relaxers are advertised to cause fewer scalp lesions and burns than lye relaxers, but there is little evidence to support this claim.

In some studies, up to 90 percent of Black and brown women have used hair relaxants and straighteners, which is more commonplace for these women than for any other race.

The most dangerous chemicals in relaxers are phthalates. They are chemical compounds used to make plastics more durable. Known as Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs), doctors say phthalates are known to cause numerous adverse human health outcomes, including endometriosis, impaired sperm quality, abnormalities in reproductive organs, various cancers, altered nervous system and immune function, respiratory problems, metabolic issues, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular problems, growth, and neurological and learning disabilities.

EDCs are also known to cause uterine cancer. According to Mitchell’s complaint, uterine cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women in developed countries, accounting for about 3 percent of all new cancer cases. Every year around 65,000 females develop uterine cancer in America alone.

Black women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with uterine cancer as white women. In addition, Black women with uterine cancer carry a poorer prognosis as compared to white women.

Mitchell’s lawsuit may deal a huge blow to the Black hair care market, especially in Chicago, a city that was once the capital of the industry.

One Chicago Black hair care company, Luster Products, was founded in Chicago and maintains its massive corporate headquarters in a 17-acre complex that includes its manufacturing facilities and distribution warehouses in Chicago’s Stockyard Industrial Complex, 1104 W. 43rd St., in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

The online Lawsuit Information Center by Miller & Zois, LLC, says there are lawsuits against Luster’s popular Smooth Touch and Pink hair relaxers, which are sold at Target, Walmart, and Sally Beauty Supply. Like many hair relaxers, they contain phthalates and EDCs. The Center says Luster Products is a multi-million-dollar company, but a uterine lawsuit against the company could have a potential settlement payout range of $300,000 to $1.75 million.

Multiple settlements could deal a huge financial blow to companies like Luster Products, positioning them on the brink of bankruptcy.

The Luster company was founded in 1957 by Fred Luster, Sr., a Black barber in Chicago who developed his relaxer products and started selling them at his barber shop. Luster Sr. died in 1991, when he was just 62 years old. Today Luster Products remains a privately-owned company and employs 250 people, including several third-generation Luster family members, according to a WTTW report in 2017. Luster products are sold in 62 countries.

Luster Products is among many iconic Chicago Black hair care companies that established the city as America’s hair care capital. During the 1910s and 1920s, Bronzeville resident and journalist Claude A. Barnett founded Kashmir Chemical Company, which manufactured specialty hair care products, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago.

During the 1930s, millionaire hair care magnates Madame CJ Walker and Annie Malone operated beauty and hair care schools on the South Side. Malone, who was Walker’s former teacher and mentor, owned four Gothic mansions where the Chicago Defender building now stands on King Drive. Malone’s rivalry with Walker was documented in the popular Netflix movie, “Self-Made.” Chicago’s Margaret Stewart Joyner who for decades organized the Bud Billiken Parade, was a student of Walker’s before she developed the Wave Machine to soften the kinks of curly hair.

In 1935, S.B. Fuller established the Fuller Products Company, a cosmetics company, on the city’s South Side. Fuller, the first Black member of the National Association of Manufacturers, led the company through an expansion that peaked in the 1950s. By that time, an army of 5,000 salesmen sold nearly $20 million a year worth of various Fuller Products cosmetics—to European Americans as well as African Americans.

One of Fuller’s employees, George Johnson, left the company in 1954 to start his own business. Along with Chicago barber Orville Nelson, Johnson created the company that would soon become the most important of all manufacturers of African American hair care products: the Johnson Products Company.

The company’s “Ultra Wave” hair straightener proved popular, as did its “Ultra Sheen” and “Afro Sheen” lines, and by the end of the 1960s annual sales were over $10 million. During the 1970s, as sales expanded even further, Johnson Products ranked as the largest African American–owned manufacturing company in the nation.

Johnson Products was not the only Chicago company engaged in the manufacture of beauty products for African American consumers. The Johnson Publishing Company, creator of Ebony magazine, entered the cosmetics business in the 1970s.

And Johnson Products’ leadership in the hair care sector was also challenged by Chicago’s own Soft Sheen Products, Inc., a company established in the 1960s by Edward Gardner, which found success with brands such as “Care-Free Curl.”

The iconic “Soul Train” dance show that originated in Chicago had many advertisements that featured Black hair care products.

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