$3.75 Million Settlement: Child Lead Poisoning from Landlord and Contractor Negligence in the Bronx

A five-year-old boy had lived his entire life in a pre-1960 apartment in the Bronx when a routine pediatric blood test, taken in January 2014, returned a lead level of 33 -- six times the CDC threshold for concern. A follow-up two weeks later measured 48. He was admitted to the hospital for treatment. At the time of his diagnosis, he was enrolled in a regular kindergarten classroom and developing on track.

For years before that test, his family had been calling the landlord about chipping paint. Each time, the landlord sent the same in-house maintenance worker to scrape, plaster, and paint over the damage. New York City lead-safety law requires that this kind of work be performed only by EPA-certified workers following strict containment procedures: floor coverings, sealed rooms, wet-mopping of dust, and post-work air testing. None of those steps were taken. The boy was frequently in the apartment while the work was being done. When the firm requested the maintenance worker's complete personnel file, the only certification document the landlord could produce was dated May 2017, three years after the child's diagnosis.

The negligence continued even after the landlord was put on notice. After New York City confirmed lead paint was present in the apartment, and while the boy's blood level was still elevated, the same uncertified worker was sent back in March 2014 to do more scraping and painting. Two weeks after that visit, the boy's blood lead level climbed back to 33.

The landlord had also hired an outside painting contractor who held an EPA certification, and the defense pointed to that paperwork. The firm examined the contractor's invoice: $225 for work described across multiple rooms. That figure, the firm argued, was far too low to cover the protective steps the certification required. The defense's medical expert, who disputed the causal link between lead exposure and the child's cognitive decline, could not withstand comparison with the boy's own school and medical records. Experts in pediatric neurology and neuropsychology, working from those records, established the connection.

The cognitive harm was documented in detail. The child's blood lead levels stayed elevated for two and a half years despite treatment. He was moved into special education by first grade. By fourth grade, he was reading at a first-grade level and doing math at a kindergarten level. By ninth grade, his reading was at a fifth-grade level and his math at a third-grade level. His school records formally identify a learning disability in reading, writing, and math. The $3.75 million recovery is designated to fund the educational support and lifetime medical care he will require.