Rulings Allow Plaintiffs’ Product Liability, Consumer Protection, Warranty, and Unjust Enrichment Class Claims to Proceed
September 30, 2024
CHICAGO—Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel DiCello Levitt, Douglas & London, Motley Rice, and Ben Crump Law, together with other Plaintiffs’ counsel in the litigation, announce the rulings mostly denying defendant’s motions to dismiss and strike the class claims by Judge Mary M. Rowland of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. This MDL is a landmark case against some of the nation’s largest hair product manufacturers, including L’Oréal, SoftSheen-Carson LLC, Revlon, Inc., and others for manufacturing and selling toxic chemical hair relaxers to Black and Brown women, which has caused these women to develop uterine, endometrial and ovarian cancer.
The Court rejected the defendants’ arguments that the plaintiffs lacked standing, that their claims were preempted by federal law, and that their class allegations were unascertainable or deficient. The Court sustained all of plaintiffs’ breach of warranty and unjust enrichment claims, while also preserving many of plaintiffs’ product liability and consumer protection claims. The Court also denied Revlon’s attempt to dismiss the class action complaint based on its bankruptcy proceedings, finding that there were unresolved factual and legal issues regarding the scope and effect of Revlon’s reorganization plan. The Court’s rulings allow the plaintiffs to continue pursuing their claims on behalf of two proposed multi-state classes: a medical monitoring class and a nationwide consumer class, as well as alternative single-state classes.
The first case comprising this mass tort litigation was filed in October 2022, by Diandra “Fu” Debrosse—co-chair of DiCello Levitt’s Mass Tort Practice and the managing partner of the firm’s Birmingham, Alabama office—after the National Cancer Institute published a study by the National Institute of Health that found women who used chemical hair straightening products four or more times per year were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer as those who didn’t use these hair relaxer products. Fu is joined as Co-Lead Counsel by Ben Crump of the Ben Crump Law Firm, Fidelma Fitzpatrick of Motley Rice LLC, and Michael A. London of Douglas & London PC.
Debrosse is widely recognized for her relentless client advocacy, representing individuals and public entities injured by wrongful conduct, whether from defective medical devices or drugs, environmental contamination, corporate misconduct, and civil rights abuses.
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