Paint Makers Ignored Peril, Lawsuits Charge

Lawsuits pending in New York and Massachusetts charge that makers of lead paint have known of its danger to children since at least the 1930s, but failed to use safe substitutes or post warnings. The suits may pave the way for a new wave of product liability claims similar to those brought by asbestos victims.

In November, 1987, four private law firms and a Washington-based public interest law firm filed suits against lead paint makers on behalf of seven children poisoned by lead paint in Massachusetts, contending that the manufacturers had a duty to warn consumers of the hazards to children.

Child Ate Paint Chips

One of the suits was brought on behalf of Monica Santiago, 16, who ate sweet-tasting lead paint chips from flaking walls in her family’s Dorchester apartment during her first few years of life, and had elevated levels in her blood for several years. Now an attractive, well-liked teen-ager, Santiago has needed special tutoring since she entered school.

“It’s hard for me to learn things fast,” said Santiago, who would like to be a secretary or a paralegal when she finishes high school. “I have to go over and over them. . . . Sometimes when I am reading, I have to reread the stuff more than twice” before comprehending it.

In another lawsuit filed June 8 against the makers of lead pigments, the City of New York, the New York Housing Authority and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. are seeking more than $50 million to pay the cost of screening and treating poisoned children and for removing lead paint from all city-owned buildings.

The suits contend that the hazard to children was well-known to the scientific and medical communities as early as the mid-19th Century. In 1921, the suits say, the International Labor Organization adopted a convention to ban the use of lead in interior paints, which was approved by most European countries in the 1920s.

By 1933, the Lead Industries Assn. in the United States recommended that lead paint not be used on children’s furniture and toys. The paint industry began voluntarily reducing the amount of metal in household paint during the 1940s and 1950s, but lead in paint was not restricted for residential use until 1977.

Opposing Regulations

“There was no question that they knew what was going on in 1933,” said Neil Leifer, an attorney who is representing the plaintiffs in both the Massachusetts and New York cases, “and rather than take it off the market, they were affirmatively working to stop states from passing regulations that would have saved kids from this danger.”

Leifer said the Massachusetts suits are the first to try to hold manufacturers responsible for lead-paint poisoning, although lead victims have successfully sued building owners and received compensation for injuries caused by emissions from lead smelters. The suits over paint are similar to claims that have been filed against asbestos manufacturers, resulting in substantial awards to victims.

Critics of the paint industry contend that it began replacing lead in paint with safer substitutes only when lead became prohibitively expensive; the lead industry says health concerns prompted the action.

‘Responsible Leader’

“The Lead Industries Assn. has been a responsible leader in the health issue relating to lead since its beginning in 1928,” said Mary Morrissey Sullivan, a New York attorney who is defending the association in the lawsuits. “It was research instigated by (the association) which resulted in voluntary standards adopted to reduce the lead in paint in 1955.”

In addition to the Lead Industries Assn., the defendants named in one or more of the suits are NL Industries Inc.; Eagle-Picher Inc.; International Smelting & Refining Co.; Sherwin-Williams Co.; SCM Corp.; Atlantic Richfield Co. and Glidden Co.