Lead Paint Lawsuit Against Sherwin-Williams Results in $7M Verdict

The family of a Mississippi teen suffering developmental difficulties was awarded $7 million last week in a decade-long lead poisoning lawsuit against paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams Co.

The case is one of only a few successful lead paint lawsuits that have resulted in verdicts against a manufacturer of toxic lead-based paint that was banned over 30 years ago. After it was originally filed in 2000, the lawsuit worked its way to the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2007, which overturned a decision in favor of Sherwin-Williams and sent the case back to be retried.

The complaint was brought by the family of Trellvion Gaines and his mother, Shermeker Pollard, in Jefferson County Circuit Court. The family alleged that Gaines injested lead paint chips and inhaled lead paint dust while living at his grandmother’s home, which had been painted with Sherwin-Williams paint in the early 1970s.

Lead paint dust and chips were generated by sanding and scrapping to remove the old paint and replace it with newer, safer paint. The family alleged that they followed instructions provided by Sherwin-Williams to remove the toxic paint.

Sherwin-Williams indicates that they have not used lead in residential paint since 1972 and the paint was banned in the United States in 1978. However, many older homes and apartment buildings throughout the country still have old paint on the walls, and lead poisoning is commonly connected to children eating paint chips or inhaling lead paint dust in older homes that are poorly maintained.

Ingesting the paint can lead to elevated levels of lead blood levels and cause lead poisoning, which is associated with developmental and cognitive problems in children. Lead poisoning can result in nervous system injuries, brain damage, seizures, growth or mental retardation, coma and death.

Gaines, who is in his late teens, currently suffers from learning disabilities and only reads at a second-grade level, which his family alleged was caused by exposure to the Sherwin-Williams lead paint.

Most lawsuits over lead poisoning pursued in the United States are filed against landlords who did not safely remove lead paint from older rental units or allowed flaking and peeling paint to fall off the walls at homes where young children live. Few cases filed against paint manufacturers are successful, primarily due to the difficulty in indentifying the manufacturer of the paint decades after it was applied to the walls.

In some states, attempts have been made to make it easier for families to recover damages against the manufacturers of lead-based paint. In Maryland, Baltimore City delegate Samuel Rosenberg proposed the Baltimore City Lead Poisoning Recovery Act to the Maryland legislature. The bill would have allowed courts to apportion damages among manufacturers of lead-based paint based on their share of the relevant market. However, the bill died in committee this year, and Rosenberg has not said whether he will re-introduce the bill in the next session.