EDITORIAL – Slaying a ‘Monster’
It is unjust for government, out of a desire to grab someone else’s money, to punish companies for having sold legal products many decades ago. The courts of New Jersey, Missouri and Wisconsin have recently recognized that, even if Rhode Island has failed to do so thus far.
On June 15, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that government cannot sue paint companies under nuisance laws simply because chipping lead paint in poorly maintained homes can be dangerous to children. The ruling was diametrically opposed to that of a Rhode Island jury last year.
The question of lead paint should fall under product-liability laws, not nuisance laws, the New Jersey judges found.
“Were we to find a cause of action here, nuisance law would become a monster,” the judges wrote in their 71-page ruling.
In other words, if the manufacturers of misused products could be sued under nuisance laws, those laws could be used to sue people for all sorts of problems the laws were not intended to regulate. That would be a rank injustice.
Courts in Missouri and Wisconsin reached the same conclusion in similar cases in June.
It is encouraging that these courts are reasserting justice against an overreaching government, even if Rhode Island failed to do so.
Lead paint was pulled off the market by manufacturers even before the government banned it decades ago. People used the product because they liked it – it went on easily and held up well. It was not until much later that more information came out regarding lead paint’s dangers, especially to children, and the culture shifted and decided that its health effects were not worth the benefits.
To punish manufacturers all these years later simply because attitudes and knowledge changed is inherently unjust. This is especially true in the case of lead paint, since the product does not pose a serious risk in well-maintained homes.
Product-liability law, unlike nuisance law, takes many such factors into consideration. It sets time limits on punishing manufacturers of products. It weighs how dangerous such products are when used properly, and whether products were sold legally at the time. While it holds manufacturers responsible for dangerous products, it recognizes that society has an interest in protecting companies today from lawsuits arising from decisions made many decades earlier under vastly different circumstances.
The lead-paint case, originally brought by former state Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse and then Atty. Gen. Patrick Lynch, has been appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. We hope that the members of that court take into consideration the sober understanding of the law and basic justice displayed by judges in other states and rule accordingly.
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