BURROUGHS v. STRENGTH OF NATURE GLOBAL, LLC (Two Cases)

Kiara Burroughs bought and used chemical hair-relaxer products made by Strength of Nature and L'Oreal from 1995 to 2014, with a one-year gap. In 2018 she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids, and after a 2022 study linked hair relaxers to health risks, she sued the manufacturers, claiming the products' chemical makeup caused her injury. The manufacturers argued her claims were barred by Georgia's ten-year statute of repose, a law that cuts off product liability lawsuits ten years after a product's first sale, because she first bought their products more than ten years before suing. The Court of Appeals of Georgia agreed and dismissed her strict liability claims, treating all her purchases from each company as one group starting from the earliest sale. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed. It held that the statute of repose runs separately for each unit of product sold, so Burroughs can still pursue claims based on hair relaxer she bought within ten years of filing suit, even though claims based on earlier purchases are barred.

Georgia's product liability statute of repose (OCGA § 51-1-11(b)(2)) applies on a per-unit basis, meaning each individual sale of a product as new to an end user starts its own ten-year clock, rather than treating all units sold to the same person over time as one group governed by the earliest sale.

The ruling affects anyone in Georgia injured by repeated use of a consumer product bought over many years, such as cosmetics, drugs, or other consumables. It means manufacturers can still be sued over recent sales even if a customer's use of the product stretches back decades, potentially expanding companies' exposure to lawsuits.

Reversed in part and remanded

1. The court explained that Georgia's strict liability statute (OCGA § 51-1-11(b)(1)) makes manufacturers liable when a product's condition at the time of sale, not merchantable or safe for its intended use, causes injury, and that a companion provision, the statute of repose (OCGA § 51-1-11(b)(2)), sets an outer ten-year deadline for bringing such claims regardless of when the injury is discovered.
2. Relying on its earlier decision in Campbell v. Altec Industries, the court noted that the statute of repose clock starts on the 'first sale for use or consumption,' meaning the sale of the product as new to its intended end user, not any earlier sale to a middleman or later resale.
3. The manufacturers argued that when someone buys many units of a product over years, all those units should be treated as one group with a single repose period starting from the earliest purchase, using the word 'first' in the statute to justify grouping the sales together.
4. The court rejected that argument, reasoning that the word 'first' in the statute already has a settled job: distinguishing the initial sale of a product as new from any later resale of that same unit, so it cannot also serve to pick a single starting date for a whole group of separately purchased units.
5. Because the statute's language refers to 'the personal property causing... the injury' as a single unit sold to an end user, the court concluded the ten-year repose period must be calculated separately for each unit sold, not for the group of purchases as a whole.
6. Applying that rule, the court found Burroughs's complaint sufficient to survive dismissal because she alleged she used hair-relaxer units sold to her within ten years of filing suit, leaving open the possibility she could prove those specific units caused her injury even without relying on earlier, time-barred purchases.

• hair relaxer lawsuit
• statute of repose
• uterine fibroids
• product liability
• chemical hair straighteners