Federal Jury Awards $6 Million in Milwaukee Lead Paint Poisoning Case

The case grew out of three Milwaukee men who were poisoned by lead paint as young children. They had grown up in old rental houses, homes built in 1902, 1899, and 1915, back when white lead carbonate was a standard pigment in interior paint. Years of peeling paint and dust in those homes put lead into their bodies before they were old enough to know the danger.

The three plaintiffs were Glenn Burton Jr., Ravon Owens, and Cesar Sifuentes. Blood tests taken in their childhoods put their lead levels between 32 and 53 micrograms per deciliter, far above the 5 micrograms that doctors now treat as a warning sign. Their lawyers told the jury the early exposure left all three struggling with reading comprehension and learning, problems that followed them into adulthood and narrowed their schooling and job prospects. "Lead is a weight on their shoulders, holding them back," plaintiffs' counsel said.

The men sued three companies tied to the pigment and paint: Sherwin-Williams, DuPont, and Armstrong Containers Inc., the successor to MacGregor Lead Co. Because the houses had been painted and repainted many times over the decades, no one could prove which company's product caused which injury. Wisconsin's risk-contribution theory, adopted by the state Supreme Court in the 2005 case Thomas v. Mallett, let the plaintiffs proceed without that proof and shifted the burden to the manufacturers. Victor Harding of the Warshafsky Law Firm served as co-counsel, working alongside Fidelma Fitzpatrick and other lawyers from Motley Rice and the Milwaukee attorney Peter Earle.

The three suits were tried together as bellwethers before U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman. After a trial that ran close to four weeks, the jury found that the companies had marketed lead pigment and paint unreasonably and had failed to warn families of the danger to children. In 2019 it awarded each man $2 million, for a combined $6 million.

The verdict did not hold. On April 15, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed it in an opinion by Judge Amy St. Eve, joined by Judges Diane Wood and Michael Scudder. The court held that Wisconsin's risk-contribution theory reaches only makers of white lead carbonate pigment, not companies that sold finished paint containing pigment made by others. Sherwin-Williams was granted judgment as a matter of law and cleared entirely. Armstrong received judgment as a matter of law on the strict-liability claims and a new trial on the negligence claims, and DuPont received a new trial on both.