Lead Paint Suit Revived

A California state appeals court reinstated a lawsuit against eight former manufacturers of lead-based paint and pigments that would force them to underwrite the removal of lead paint from low-income housing.

Bonnie Campbell, a spokeswoman for the paint makers, which include DuPont, ICI???s Glidden unit, and Sherwin-Williams, cautions that "this is only a preliminary step in a lengthy process." She adds, "At the end of the day, we believe that the facts and the law are on our side."

Widely used in residential paints prior to 1955 and banned by the federal government in 1978, lead carbonate-based paints deteriorate to a dust that threatens, in particular, children???s developing brains and nervous systems.

Word of the California reinstatement follows a Rhode Island jury's decision, the first of its kind, finding three paint makers guilty of creating a public nuisance for selling lead paint (C&EN, Feb. 27, page 21). The judge in that case has yet to decide what the companies must do to clean up lead paint in the state, but the judge had decided earlier that the companies would not face punitive damages.

Santa Clara County filed the original lawsuit against the paint makers in 2000. The suit then grew to include all California cities and counties. The plaintiffs sought, among other things, to recover costs for lead paint abatement in government-owned buildings and low-income housing. According to Campbell, a former Iowa attorney general, the appeals court upheld a lower court ruling dropping the demand for abatement of lead paint in government-owned buildings.