Good News: Lead Paint Litigation Victory In Missouri

In a major victory for the former lead paint companies, on Tuesday the Supreme Court of Missouri ruled, "... product identification requirement applies with equal force to public nuisance cases brought by governmental entities for monetary damages accrued as an alleged result of public nuisance."

See Jane Genova's Law and More. The case is City of St. Louis vs. Benjamin Moore, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A); Company, et al., et al. Respondents. There is an unofficial copy of interim court opinion available free from [e-mail].

This ruling is in direct conflict with the set of instructions to the jury issued by Judge Michael Silverstein in the Rhode Island lead paint trial vs. Sherwin Williams (SHW) and Milwaukee's case against NL Industries (NL). And it affirms the trial court's earlier decision in summary judgment. The opinion states, "The trial court did not err in entering summary judgment against the city [of St. Louis] based on its inability to provide any product identification evidence." The city had appealed that decision.

In the original case, as in lead paint public nuisance litigation in general, there was no way to link the paint on the walls of buildings to a specific lead paint brand or to a specific manufacturer. Therefore, the city of St. Louis attempted to use "market-share evidence." The trial court disagreed. It characterized that evidence as perhaps relevant but not sufficient to prove causation and entered a summary judgment for the paint companies.

Can we lead-paint watchers also expect similar good news from the RI Supreme Court where the verdict from the RI lead paint trial is being appealed?

Comments

[mikegre]

You asked: "Can we lead-paint watchers also expect similar good news from the RI Supreme Court where the verdict from the RI lead paint trial is being appealed?"

That depends on whether or not you believe Judge Silverstein, who is overseeing the trial, is honest or corrupt. Considering the former major of Providence is still in jail on corruption charges ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), I'm not too optimistic for the paint companies.

2007 Jun 14 07:58 AM

[afanes]

This is not good news, even from an ecconomic point of view.

For those of us who work (and invest) in St. Louis, and see firsthand the effects of an underqualified work force on our city's economic viability, one more thing working against the next generation as a work force is decidedly bad news.

Unlike something like tobacco, where the primary goal of settlement money for government entities would be to prevent the next generation from taking active steps to expose themselves to a toxin (or, to be fair, from being exposed by others), lead paint is a hazard that is at this very moment spread throughout the city's lower income and working class housing stock. The most recent evidence available suggests that for children living in these units, we can expect on average an approximately 8 point drop in IQ *before* that child even hits the legal definition of lead poisoning (and it only gets worse from there). The only way to get this hazard out of our housing stock - and to stop poisoning generation after generation of inhabitants - is to shell out the dollars to redo these tens of thousands of units one by one. While most calculates show that the expected decrease in lifetime costs of the expected IQ loss, increased crime rates, and increased behavioral problems associated with lead exposure will in the end make these interventions a net gain for the city government, there is no way the city can scrape together enough upfront investment for this project. The only way it is going to happen is from a settlement fund.

Finally, it is absolutely 100% clear that those who made, marketed and distributed these lead-filled pigments during the years most of this housing stock was built knew exactly what they were doing - there are reams of memos documenting the plans laid out for selling as much lead paint as possible while lobbying (and bribing) to keep the inevitable legislation delayed for as long as possible.

There are few cases where where it is as clear as this one that a settlement is both deserved and will provide a significant net positive for society. It is very, very bad news that this ruling is a step away from this net positive being achieved.

2007 Jun 16 01:04 AM

[pod]

It is simply not true that IQ decrements of 8 points occur at or below the 10 ug/dl level which is the present (incorrect) definition of "lead poisoning". In the period from 1940 to 1970 the average blood levels of american children were 30 ug/dl (meaning that half had levels higher than this). In fact about 96% of the hundred million or so children born during these decades were "poisoned" by todays standards. Yet the IQ of american children rose steadily throughout those years at a rate of 3 IQ points per decade. This is the so called "Flynn effect". The present concern and the present zealots regarding lead poisoning fail to address this data. Science requires that prior data be reconciled with theory. Emotional arguments based on intuition, though no doubt earnestly believed, have no more medical or scientific than opinion. Your concerns, history suggests, are unnecessary.

2008 Jul 21 09:51 PM