U.S. & World

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) ― The Rhode Island Supreme Court overturned a landmark verdict against three former lead paint producers Tuesday, a major setback for communities that want the companies to decontaminate hundreds of thousands of homes and other buildings.

The unanimous decision reversed the lone victory to date against the lead paint industry.

A jury found Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc. and Millennium Holdings LLC liable in 2006 for creating a public nuisance by manufacturing and selling a toxic product.

The state had proposed that the companies spend an estimated $2.4 billion to inspect and clean hundreds of thousands of homes built before 1980 that it said were likely to contain lead paint.

The court, in its 4-0 decision, said the state's lawsuit should have been dismissed at the outset. It said that while lead paint was a public health problem in Rhode Island, it wasn't the companies' responsibility to clean it up because they had no control over how the paint was used.

"Our hearts go out to those children whose lives forever have been changed by the poisonous presence of lead," Chief Justice Frank Williams wrote in the opinion. "But, however grave the problem of lead poisoning is in Rhode Island, public nuisance law simply does not provide a remedy for this harm."

A lawyer for Sherwin-Williams called the ruling a "victory for common sense."

"This case never should have been filed," said Charles H. Moellenberg, Jr. "It was factually wrong and legally flawed. A company should not be held liable when there is no proof that it did anything wrong."

Shares of Sherwin-Williams jumped 4.8 percent, or $2.19, to $48.12 at the open of trade and NL Industries rose 4.9 percent to $10.00, but the companies were trading essentially flat later in the morning

Jack McConnell, a lawyer for the state, would not immediately comment.

Rhode Island was the first state to sue over the harms of lead paint, which studies have shown can cause brain damage, coma and even death in children exposed to flaking paint chips or dust. The state's lawsuit, filed in 1999, targeted former makers of lead pigment, which had long been used in paint to make it more durable.

The first trial ended in 2002 with a hung jury.

The case went to trial again in the fall of 2005. The jury ruled against three manufacturers and absolved a fourth, Atlantic-Richfield Co. It was the only court case the lead paint industry has lost.

Though lead-based paint was banned from residential use in the U.S. in 1978, lawyers for the state say it has poisoned tens of thousands of children since the early 1990s in Rhode Island, where a large percentage of homes were built before the ban took effect. They said lead paint remains in an estimated 240,000 properties.

The state said the companies continued manufacturing and selling lead-based paint even though they knew it was unsafe. It said that unlike property owners, landlords and taxpayers, the companies have done nothing to deal with the problem.

The companies argued that the number of lead-poisoned children was steadily declining. They said the state never presented any evidence that their products were used in any Rhode Island home or had even been sold in the state.

The state's $2.4 billion cleanup proposal, which the companies are challenging separately, is being reviewed by two public health experts appointed by a judge.

It would have required the companies to remove or permanently enclose lead paint from homes built before 1980, two years after lead paint was banned, as well as elementary schools, playgrounds and child care centers. The state says its proposal would have taken four years and involved 10,000 workers.

There have been efforts around the country to sue lead paint makers, but so far no other case has been successful. Several suits are still pending, including in Ohio and California. The top courts in New Jersey and Missouri last year rejected public nuisance lawsuits against the companies, while a jury in Milwaukee in November ruled in favor of NL Industries in a suit brought by the city.

The court also overturned contempt sanctions and fines totaling $15,000 against Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch. Lynch was fined on two separate occasions, once for describing the companies as those who would "spin and twist the facts" and another for comments made after the verdict, including that the companies could not "duck and run" from their obligations to deal with lead paint problems.

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