Permitting law suits against a number of lead paint manufacturers to compel them to pay for removing contaminated paint from housing units could lead to insurers having to respond to claims from the manufacturers policies. Sure, the units have been repainted with lead-free paint, but over the years cracks appear, the lead paint flakes and the dust can poison those living there, especially children.
Lead poisoning occurs mainly in poorly maintained housing.
During the 1940s and 1950s, paint manufacturers essentially discontinued the use of lead pigments in consumer paints and publicly supported all federal legislation and regulation prohibiting the use of lead, including legislation in 1971 and the 1978 Consumer Product Safety Commission ban. There has been a 78 per cent decline in overall lead in blood levels among all Americans between 1976 and 1991. The most significant reductions occurred when airborne lead levels dropped due to the removal of lead from gasoline in the 1970s. Suits concerning removal of lead paint have usually been made against landlords to force them to clean up their properties, or to pay for medical care for children suffering from lead poisoning. Suits against paint manufacturers have so far been unsuccessful because the companies maintain they stopped putting lead in paint when it was banned, and never engaged in cover-ups unlike tobacco companies, for example, which denied manipulating nicotine in cigarettes right up to the time of the settlement of the attorneys general lawsuit .