State of Rhode Island v. Lead Industries Association, Inc.
951 A.2d 428 (2008)
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Rule of Law:
To establish a claim for public nuisance, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant's conduct unreasonably interfered with a right common to the general public and that the defendant had control over the instrumentality causing the nuisance at the time the damage occurred. The lawful sale of a product, which later causes harm after the manufacturer has relinquished control, does not constitute a public nuisance.
Facts:
- Defendants NL Industries, Inc. (NL), The Sherwin-Williams Co. (Sherwin-Williams), and Millennium Holdings LLC (Millennium), or their predecessors, manufactured, promoted, and sold lead pigment for use in residential paint.
- As early as 1930, the Lead Industries Association (LIA), a trade group to which defendants belonged, was aware of and discussed the dangers of lead-based paint and its connection to childhood lead poisoning.
- Defendants sold the lead pigment to other companies, which incorporated it into paint that was then sold to consumers through the stream of commerce.
- The lead-based paint was applied to the interiors and exteriors of buildings throughout Rhode Island.
- Over time, this paint deteriorated into chips and dust, creating a hazardous condition within homes and other properties.
- Thousands of children in Rhode Island suffered from lead poisoning after ingesting or inhaling lead from the deteriorating paint, resulting in severe and permanent health problems.
- The defendants did not have ownership or control of the lead pigment or the properties on which it was applied at the time the paint deteriorated and caused harm to children.
Procedural Posture:
- The State of Rhode Island, through its Attorney General, filed a complaint in the Superior Court against several former lead pigment manufacturers, including NL Industries, Sherwin-Williams, and Millennium Holdings.
- The defendants' motion to dismiss the public nuisance claim was denied by the trial justice.
- The first jury trial resulted in a deadlock, and the trial justice declared a mistrial.
- A second trial proceeded solely on the state's public nuisance claim.
- The jury returned a verdict finding NL Industries, Sherwin-Williams, and Millennium Holdings liable for creating a public nuisance and ordering them to abate it; it found in favor of another defendant, ARCO.
- The trial justice entered a judgment of abatement against the three liable defendants.
- The liable defendants appealed the judgment to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, and the state filed cross-appeals on other issues.
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Issue:
Does a manufacturer's lawful sale of lead pigment, which later causes harm after the manufacturer has relinquished control, constitute a public nuisance under Rhode Island law?
Opinions:
Majority - Chief Justice Williams
No. A manufacturer's sale of a lawful product does not constitute a public nuisance where the manufacturer lacks control over the product at the time of harm and the harm itself does not constitute an interference with a public right. The state's claim fails because it cannot establish two essential elements of a public nuisance cause of action: (1) an interference with a 'public right' and (2) that the defendants had 'control' over the lead pigment at the time it caused injury. First, a public right is an indivisible right shared by the public at large, such as the right to clean air, safe public waterways, or unobstructed public highways. The harm of childhood lead poisoning, while tragic and widespread, constitutes an aggregation of many individual, private injuries occurring within private homes, not an infringement on a collective public right. Second, liability for public nuisance requires that the defendant have control over the nuisance-causing instrumentality at the time the damage occurs, primarily because the remedy for nuisance is abatement. The defendants sold the lead pigment decades ago and have no control over the millions of individual properties where the paint was applied, making them unable to abate the alleged nuisance. To apply public nuisance law to product manufacturers would improperly expand the tort to supplant the established field of products liability law.
Analysis:
This decision significantly restricts the scope of public nuisance tort law, preventing its application to manufacturers for harms caused by their products after they have entered the stream of commerce. By strictly defining 'public right' and requiring 'control' at the time of injury, the court erects a barrier against using public nuisance as a substitute for products liability claims, which have more stringent requirements for proving defect and causation. The ruling aligns Rhode Island with a majority of jurisdictions that have rejected such product-based public nuisance theories, thereby protecting manufacturers from potentially limitless liability for products lawfully sold decades earlier. This forces future litigants to pursue claims through traditional products liability channels and shifts the legal responsibility for abatement to parties who currently control the hazardous property, such as landlords.
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