Sherwin-Williams to Appeal $7 Million Award in Lead-Paint Case

Sherwin-Williams has announced it will appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court a $7 million verdict awarded to a teenager who says he has learning disabilities from his exposure to the company's lead-based paint.

Judge Lamar Pickard of the Jefferson County Circuit Court denied Sherwin-Williams' motions seeking a new trial and judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

In June the jury found the company liable for 18-year-old Trellvion Gaines' lead poisoning and awarded him $7 million.

Attorney Charles H. Moellenberg Jr. of Jones Day in Pittsburgh, who represented Sherwin-Williams, said in a statement that the company "respectfully disagreed" with the court's ruling and would appeal the jury's verdict to the high court.

This is the only fully adjudicated case to hold former lead-paint manufacturers responsible for a child's lead poisoning, Moellenberg said.

In 2000 Gaines' mother, Shermeker Pollard, filed suit on his behalf, alleging he developed cognitive deficiencies from ingesting lead-based paint manufactured by Sherwin-Williams. Pollard and Gaines lived in a house built in the early 1930s in Fayette, Miss.

The complaint alleged Gaines was exposed to lead dust, chips and other debris from the sanding, scraping and removal of the lead paint inside the house based on the procedure required for application of Sherwin-Williams' non-lead-based paint.

Pollard said she suffered mental anguish because of her son's learning disabilities. She asserted claims for strict liability, negligence, and fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation.

The trial court granted Sherwin-Williams summary judgment, finding that Pollard and Gaines should have sued by 1996, three years after Gaines was diagnosed with lead poisoning.

The court also said Gaines failed to prove that Sherwin-Williams manufactured the lead paint he ingested.

After both parties filed numerous appeals on statute-of-limitations and product identification grounds, the Mississippi Supreme Court granted review in 2006.

The plaintiffs had argued that the three-year limitations period was tolled by the state's "minor savings" statute, which tolls the deadline until a minor reaches age 21.

The high court agreed, finding that a minor's claim under the statute remains viable until he decides to pursue it.

Concerning the trial court's grant of summary judgment on product identification, the Supreme Court reversed, finding genuine issues of material fact for a jury to decide.

The high court cited a deposition by a witness for the plaintiffs who testified that he saw the house at issue being painted in the 1930s with white Sherwin-Williams paint. He also said the people painting the house told him it was Sherwin-Williams paint.

The Supreme Court therefore reversed summary judgment and remanded for trial.

In June the jury found for Gaines and Pollard

Sherwin-Williams has again petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court for review. Moellenberg said that the evidence presented at trial showed that it was impossible to have either bought or applied Sherwin-Williams' lead paint to the house after 1978 since the company had stopped manufacturing any residential paint with lead by the end of 1972.

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