Common Sense from Rhode Island
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 By Marc KilmerThe Rhode Island Supreme Court dismissed a public nuisance lawsuit against Sherwin Williams. Unfortunately, the suit filed by disgraced former Attorney General Marc Dann against this Ohio company remains, as does the suit filed by the city of Columbus. Perhaps this common sense ruling from Rhode Island will cause both the state of Ohio and the city of Columbus to stop wasting taxpayer dollars to harass this company with their baseless lawsuits.
David Owsiany wrote an excellent Viewpoint for the Buckeye Institute last year explaining the flaws of the “public nuisance” theory:
Public nuisance is a relatively obscure and narrow legal theory that permits a government entity to take action to stop or abate the impact of specific unreasonable behavior that causes injury to a public right. For example, under the public nuisance theory, a city may take action to stop someone from blasting their radio when people are picnicking in a public park or to force responsible parties to abate the damage caused by their dumping of sewage into a public river. Public nuisance law, however, has little applicability in the lead paint context.
Lead paint is only dangerous when it peels or flakes, releasing a fine dust that when ingested can cause lead poisoning. Accordingly, proper maintenance of older buildings over the last three decades, including a fresh coat of non-lead paint, would have dramatically reduced the threat of lead poisoning. Most paint companies, including the Ohio-based Sherwin-Williams Company, which is one of the companies named in Columbus’ lawsuit, stopped selling lead-based paints long before the federal government banned its use in 1978.
Misusing public nuisance law as a means to shake down paint companies for selling, what was at the time, a legal product more than forty years ago, ignores the traditional legal standards for liability, including proving that a product defect caused a specific harm. Such litigation also disregards the negligence of owners who failed to maintain their properties in a reasonable fashion, especially in light of the well-known threat caused by allowing buildings with lead paint to deteriorate.
Tags: AG Activism, Free Enterprise
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:49 pm
[...] In the end, Spitzer, Dann, and Scruggs were done in by their disregard for the legal system and the laws they hid behind. Lust, greed, and ambition were their true motivators and that has now been exposed. They got what they deserved. Unfortunately, we are now stuck with their legacy: state AGs and their trial lawyer buddies abusing the legal system to achieve political ends. Hopefully, more courts will see through such abuse as the Rhode Island Supreme Court did this week in the conte… [...]
July 7th, 2008 at 10:38 am
[...] editorial deals with the bogus lead paint lawsuits. The editorial makes the same points we made last week that holding lead paint companies liable for a “public nuisance” for selling a product [...]
July 10th, 2008 at 10:46 am
[...] last week shot down the legal argument the city was pursuing.” Marc Kilmer reported on the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s decision last week, pointing out the fallacy of trying to hold paint manufacturers liable for creating a “public [...]