The public nuisance lawsuit was first filed in 1999. After the first trial resulted in a mistrial, the second trial, lasting four months, became the longest civil jury trial in Rhode Island’s history and marked the first time in the United States that a trial resulted in a verdict imposing liability on lead paint pigment manufacturers under a public nuisance theory. Among other grounds, the defendant manufacturers appealed from the trial justice’s denial of their motion to dismiss and argued that the trial justice erred by misapplying the law of public nuisance and by finding a causal connection between defendant’s actions and lead poisoning in Rhode Island. In reversing the judgment of the Superior Court as to the liability of the defendants, the court concluded that the state did not and could not allege any set of facts to support the claim that the defendants interfered with a public right. The court reasoned that the right of an individual child not to be poisoned by lead paint is a nonpublic right, and the court saw no reason to depart from the long-standing principle that a public right “is a right of the public to shared resources such as air, water, or public rights of way.” Further, the court reasoned that even if the state adequately alleged interference with a public right, it would also have to allege that the defendant manufacturers controlled the pigment at the time it caused injury, which it did not.
Click here to read the court’s decision and click here to read a Blog post about the Rhode Island Attorney General’s proposed Lead Nuisance Abatement Plan that was proposed in 2007.