Legal win for hair relaxer users comes with a warning

In a unanimous decision, the court revived previously dismissed product liability claims filed by Georgian Kiara Burroughs against the hair relaxer makers that she blames for her uterine fibroids and associated health problems.

But the court noted its decision means Burroughs and others like her might have a harder time winning their cases against cosmetic giants including L’Oreal USA. That’s because they cannot base their claims on any products they used more than 10 years before suing.

“This does not mean that a plaintiff who brings such an action has an easy road to proving her claim,” Justice Andrew Pinson wrote for the court.

It all comes down to timing.

Georgia has a 10-year limit on product liability claims. The difficulty is in applying that to cases alleging injury from repeated use of a product over time.

“A legislative solution may well be better than any answer a court could come up with given the current statute,” Pinson wrote in a footnote.

In her complaint, Burroughs said she started using chemical hair relaxers made by L’Oreal USA and other companies in 1995, when she was 6. She claimed she regularly used the products until 2014 and was diagnosed with uterine fibroids in 2018.

In 2024, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that Burroughs’ product liability claims were time-barred because she sued more than a decade after she first used hair relaxers.

That decision was wrong, because the clock begins with each sale of a product for use, the state Supreme Court said Wednesday.

The ruling means Burroughs’ case can move forward, with limitations. To win, she must now show her injuries were caused only by the products she bought and used between 2012 and 2014, in the decade before she sued. She cannot base her lawsuit on her use of the products in the preceding 17 years.

“The plaintiff could still lose if the actual evidence developed during the course of the lawsuit shows that the older time-barred sales/uses were an integral aspect of the injuries she now claims,” said Laurie Webb Daniel, an Atlanta attorney who represented the U.S. and Georgia chambers of commerce in asking the court to uphold the dismissal of Burroughs’ claims.

In a statement Wednesday, a L’Oreal USA spokesperson said they are disappointed by the court’s ruling, though it reflects “only a procedural matter.”

The company has been sued by people all over the country in relation to hair relaxers made by its SoftSheen-Carson subsidiary. The spokesperson said L’Oreal USA strictly follows all applicable regulations and that its products undergo rigorous scientific evaluation for safety.

“Our highest priority is the health and wellbeing of all our consumers,” the spokesperson said. “We are confident in the safety of SoftSheen-Carson’s products and believe the allegations made in these lawsuits will be proven to have neither legal nor scientific merit.”