Second State Supreme Court Rejects Public Nuisance Theory This Week
To: LEGAL AFFAIRS EDITORS
Contact: Mike Tetuan, +1-202-207-3638, for Atlantic Richfield Company, Millennium Holdings, LLC, NL Industries, Inc. and The Sherwin Williams Company
TRENTON, N.J., June 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Supreme Court of New Jersey today threw out the last remaining claim of public nuisance in a case brought by 26 New Jersey municipalities against former manufacturers of lead pigment or their alleged successors. The ruling came after a decision Tuesday by the Supreme Court of Missouri that also rejected a public nuisance claim.
“With this long-awaited and significant ruling, the Supreme Court of New Jersey has taken an important step by joining Missouri, Illinois and other state courts in rejecting the distortion of public nuisance law,” said Bonnie J. Campbell, former Attorney General of Iowa and spokesperson for the defendants. “Today the Court found that the plaintiffs’ nuisance claim is inconsistent with the well-recognized parameters of public nuisance law, and that to find otherwise would be directly contrary to the legislature’s pronouncements on both lead paint abatement programs and products liability law. These companies are not responsible for risks today from poorly maintained lead paint.”
In its decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that the state “Legislature, consistent with traditional public nuisance concepts, recognized that the appropriate target of the abatement and enforcement scheme must be the premises owner whose conduct has, effectively, created the nuisance.”
It added: “Indeed, the suggestion that plaintiffs can proceed against these defendants on a public nuisance theory would stretch the theory to the point of creating strict liability to be imposed on manufacturers of ordinary consumer products which, although legal when sold, and although sold no more recently than a quarter of a century ago, have become dangerous through deterioration and poor maintenance by the purchasers.”
The public nuisance theory has now been rejected in all three states where such lawsuits against the defendants have been fully adjudicated. Along with New Jersey and Missouri, courts in Illinois rejected lawsuits based on the public nuisance theory in 2005.
“The New Jersey legislature has adopted a comprehensive program to address risks created by landlords who do not maintain their properties,” Campbell said. “The best way to protect children is to enforce the law, which requires landlords to maintain their properties and empowers local boards of health to clean up properties when landlords neglect their responsibilities.”
The initial suit was filed by the City of Newark on December 14, 2001. A number of similar suits filed later were all consolidated before a mass tort judge in February 2002. The Supreme Court’s action reversed an Appellate Division decision in August 2005 that remanded the plaintiffs’ public nuisance claim for further proceedings.
Contact: Prism Public Affairs
Mike Tetuan — 202-207-3638
SOURCE Atlantic Richfield Company; Millennium Holdings, LLC; NL Industries, Inc.; The Sherwin Williams Company
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