Budget Provision Would Restrict Lead Paint Lawsuits

A provision in the state budget would make it harder to sue lead paint manufacturers for health damages caused by their products.

Lawyers representing children harmed by such paint are calling on lawmakers to reject the measure.

The budget item is one of several that were part of an omnibus budget amendment passed early last Wednesday morning. Essentially, it enacts a law that failed to pass the state legislature last year. Milwaukee attorney Peter Earle represents some of the 171 children whose lawsuits against six corporations could be blocked by the law.

“And now they’re saying they want to go back and change the law to favor one set of parties against another set of parties. They favor the interests of billion dollar corporations that pollute and contaminated hundreds and thousands of houses across this country – with knowledge that it was going to injure children – to make a profit. And they’re saying to the children, ‘we’re throwing you under the bus.’”

But that’s not the way the author of the bill, Republian state Sen. Glen Grothman, sees it. In testimony before a Senate committee last year, he said the law is needed to correct a poorly crafted Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that unfairly targets paint companies.

“When they retroactively tell businesses that were producing paint in 1900 or 1910 that not only can you be liable for damages if there were damages – and that’s questionable for ingredients in paint – but you have to be liable for paint produced by any paint company in the United States in 1900 … obviously you cannot operate commerce with that kind of decision made.”

Grothman says the budget provision headed for the floor of the Senate and Assembly now would not block the 171 pending lawsuits, but would require lawyers to find out exactly which companies produced the paint that caused their clients’ health problems and sue those companies.