Poor maintenance in older, low-rent housing means children are exposed to lead paint in Baltimore City and other parts of the state. The effects, including brain damage, can ruin lives.
But trial lawyers should not be the ones to benefit from their suffering.
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They stand to gain millions from legislation before the House Judiciary Committee today to allow them to sue manufacturers over paint meeting federal guidelines when it was produced. That?s probably why the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association political action committee has donated $545,500 to members of the state legislature since 2000, with more than 10 percent directed toward 12 members of the House Judiciary Committee who will hear the bill.
They want this ability because those producers who are left (the federal government banned lead paint in 1978) have deeper pockets than landlords who do not maintain their properties.
The most egregious, HB1241, sponsored by Baltimore City Del. Sandy Rosenberg, D, would allow plaintiffs to sue manufacturers without having symptoms related to lead poisoning and without evidence a manufacturer?s paint was used in their houses. This is called “market-share liability” because it would apportion damages among manufacturers found negligent based on their dominance in the paint market. No other state has passed a similar law.
And Maryland does not need one. According to the Maryland Department of the Environment, “aggressive state funding” has significantly reduced both the number and percent of children with elevated lead blood levels since 1994.
Any money recovered from lawsuits would first be used to repay the state for health care costs of those exposed to lead, according to the bill. It does not cap fees for lawyers, which could result in huge payouts to them and minimal returns for victims. A Manhattan Institute report shows that nationally only 50 percent of all money in class-action suits goes to victims, and less than 25 percent of it is directed toward compensating victims for economic damages.
To give you an example of what could happen, Baltimore lawyer Peter Angelos claimed the state owed him more than $1 billion in fees for his tobacco litigation work. After a long battle with the state, he settled for $150 million in 2002. Don?t expect him or other lawyers, including Saul Kerpelman and Evan Thalenberg, two known for representing clients in lead paint lawsuits, to be generous to the state with any lead paint settlements they win.
This bill is not about helping victims. It?s about making rich lawyers even richer at the expense of taxpayers. Consulting firm Tillinghast-Towers Perrin Inc. estimates the U.S. tort system costs every person a “lawsuit tax” of $825 per year as legal fees drive the cost of services and products higher. This legislation will only increase that tax and make Maryland more unfriendly to business.
Del. Rosenberg must drop HB1241. Only his trial lawyer benefactors, his campaign coffers and those of his fellow Judiciary Committee members will gain from it.
