Sherwin-Williams Shoots Back:
Two Ohio cities, Toledo and East Cleveland, sued paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams for producing lead-based paint way back when. Now Sherwin-Williams is suing them back (along with Columbus) to stop the litigation. Among other things, Sherwin-Williams is challenging the cities' use of outside, contingenc-fee lawyers to press the litigation. This sounds like an interesing claim, so I will post a link to Sherwin-Williams complaint if I can track it down.
The contingency fee thing I don't get -- are they saying that only lawyers who are actually employed on a full-time basis by the city can sue? That doesn't make sense to me; maybe in Columbus you could manage it, but there are dozens of small cities that don't even have full-time librarians, let alone full-time lawyers. If contingency fee lawyers can't be used by them in a lawsuit, then I don't think they can't sue anyone at all.
The state of the science was muddled, but not tremendously so. Childhood lead poisoning was known as early as 1904, and some countries straightaway started banning lead paint for interior painting. In 1943 there was a major public health scare in the US concerning lead-painted cribs and toys -- this even came with modern-style "no proven link" denials from both the lead-mining and the paint industry. However in the 1950s the paint industry voluntarily started reducing the lead content of paint, in 1968 mostly stopped producing lead paint, and in 1978 the use of lead paint was outlawed.
Lead carbonate was used primarily because of the bright white it provided, which made colors clearer, and because of the remarkable durability of the paint. Similar brightness could be obtained from titanium, but this was more expensive for most of the century, and it was not until lead paint stopped being manufactured that it became widespread. Lead paint's remarkable durability and the vast quantities stored even after the 1968 suspension of manufacturing motivated the '78 lead laws. That same durability means that many lead-painted houses are still looking good with the original paint (I just bought one, for instance; the de-leading contractor starts in on it tomorrow...)
A major question in the science was always the issue of dosage and "pica." The amount of lead required to cause serious lead poisoning was thought to be very high and the industry maintained that nobody eats that much lead. It is now known that even small amounts of lead can cause damage, and one of the first symptoms is pica -- a tendency to eat non-food objects. Thus lead poisoning feeds itself, as children who eat lead paint chips become more likely to eat more. This tendency meant that studies tended to understate the problem -- and the more carefully they controlled the study, the more the problem was understated.
Lead-based paint ...brain injuries ....
I wonder how many equestrians have gotten brain damage from all those horse jumps used in American horse shows and riding academies painted with lead-based Sherwin Williams paint?
The city could simply pay them their hourly rate while they work on the case, as I imagine is fairly normal when an entity hires a lawyer for a serious case.
The legal theory for challenging the use of contingency-fee lawyers will be interesting to see, though.
Of course, then they'd have to justify why they're spending all that money on a case of dubious merit, especially if they lost. There's also the corruption angle -- a lot of the state tobacco lawsuit contigency-fee players donated nice fat chunks of their winnings to supportive political candidates; you can't siphon off those dollars if they go directly to the state.
I don't think that the govt should ever be filing contingency lawsuits. It violates good accountability procedures and it encourages wasteful lawsuits.
Thanks for the info. So I guess the question is all about the amount of lead Sherwin-Williams was using in the paint and the understanding at the time of the amount of lead needed to cause damage.
The only way lead paint causes a problem is in homes that have not been maintained and the paint is peeling.
There are other sources of lead in our enviorment including lead pipes used for water and lead found on the ground from cars using lead gasoline.
Grant Gould, you are correct the some doctors were talking about lead problems in children as early as 1904 but no one could pin point what was causing the problem according to some of the documents presented at the trial.
The final point in in referance to Roger Schlafly statemnet of the cost of fixing the problem. The AG of Rohode Isand is asking for between $1.37 billion and $3.74 billion to completely remove all the lead paint from about 250,000 homes.
I am still not sure how you can hold a company responsible for using a legal product in the past the today should be considered a public nuisance.
I don't think that the govt should ever be filing contingency lawsuits. It violates good accountability procedures and it encourages wasteful lawsuits.
Also, I've never heard of a municipality being able to enter into a large contract without some sort of bidding process. How would one bid a contingent fee? Lowest percentage wins the bid? Hmmmm. That doesn't square with the tort lawyers' mantra to "get rich on the misery of others" very well.
I've seen an x-ray of a child's GI tract filled with white specks (lead paint chips) somewhere on the Internet, so I'm sure that they do. Isn't lead supposed to have a vaguely sweet flavor? I've also heard stories about kids sucking on lead soldiers (before they were replaced by green plastic army men).
That is not an urban legend, there is a medical term for children the eat things other than food it has slipped my mind. I will assume I am a lot older then you, so you would not remember tv ads telling kids not to eat paint. This ocurred in the earlier 70's on the NYC tv stations and funded by the NYC health department.
I believe the former Texas Attorney General went to jail for lying about how much work his friend did on the tobacco litigation. When you have billions of dollars in contingency fees being handed out to friends of the incumbent, some type of oversight would appear to be necessary.
How so? One of the benefits of contingency fee arrangements is usually thought to be that it better aligns the interests of client and lawyer than hourly fee arrangements. The former gives the lawyer a direct interest in the amount of the plaintiff's recovery; the latter just gives the lawyer an interest in doing lots of work.
Isn't that a good thing from the taxpayer's point of view?
Money corrupts the political process--there's nothing unique about the corrupting power of contingency money. The real problem in Ohio seems to be corporate litigants with cases pending before the Supreme Court contributing to justices' re-election campaigns. Bet Sherwin Williams starts contributing heavily.
Maybe true for the federal government; probably not for the municipality of East Cleveland.
Government has a very serious responsibility to protect the public fisc, by among other things, recovering funds for its taxpayers. If that's best achieved through a contingency arrangement, how is there "irrevocable damage"?
Lead salts are generally quite sweet to the taste. Lead Acetate, for instance, is commanly refered to as "sugar of lead".
If memory serves, within the past five or so years it was found that municipal water supply pipes in DC and Boston were lead pipes.
Horses that are turned out in arenas with lead-based painted horse jumps or fencing eat it, too. If one were inclined to so undertake a study of the subject, I would surmise that numerous wacked-out horse accidents injuring equines and humans are caused as a result of equine ingestion of lead-based paint.