Lawmaker reintroduces bill to clear homeowners of lead paint liability

SACRAMENTO — A state lawmaker has reintroduced a bill that would specify homeowners are not liable for lead-based paint in their homes if they participate in an abatement program.

AB 206, authored by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco,, is nearly identical to a bill he introduced last year, AB 2073. He dropped that effort in June as part of a deal with three paint manufacturers to take an initiative off the ballot that would have absolved them of hundreds of millions in liability.

The bill states that “any property owner ... who participates in a program to abate lead-based paint created as a result of a judgment or settlement in any public nuisance or similar litigation” is immune from a lawsuit seeking to recover the cost of that program.

“The goal of this bill is to incentivize participation in a lead paint remediation program,” Chiu said in an email. “We want as many homeowners and property owners as possible to take advantage of the opportunity to finally get toxic lead paint out of California homes.”

The bill would short-circuit any attempt to test a novel legal theory put forward by manufacturers of lead paint: that the paint makers could sue homeowners for proportionate liability if they attempted to access a $409 million abatement program created by the verdict in a major lead paint case. County of Santa Clara v. Atlantic Richfield Co., et al, 1-00-CV-788657 (S.C. Super. Ct., filed Mar. 23, 2000).

The 18-year-long case began when 10 California cities and counties sought to hold manufacturers liable for lead paint cleanup in older housing. It ended in October when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review it.

Mary E. Alexander, a plaintiffs’ attorney hired by the city and county of San Francisco in 2000 who later become part of the team representing all the plaintiffs, said the original court ruling stated any money left in the abatement fund would revert to the manufacturers after four years.

She said the companies’ goal was more to dissuade homeowners from accessing the fund than to bring and win individual cases.

“To some extent, it doesn’t matter whether they’re winning or not,” said the San Francisco-based attorney with Mary Alexander & Associates P.C. “It’s to create chaos and slow the process down so the four years runs out.”

Their initiative effort, known as the Healthy Homes and Schools Act of 2018, would have forced the state to sell $2 billion in publicly-financed bonds to clean up lead paint in homes, schools and retirement communities.

It was sponsored by ConAgra Brands Inc., NL Industries Inc. and Sherwin-Williams Company, three of the main companies facing liability for decades of lead paint sales. The companies raised $8 million for the effort and spent $7.3 million, including nearly $4.3 million for an abandoned signature gathering effort.

NL Industries eventually dropped out of the organization behind the effort, known as Californians for Safe and Affordable Housing, as part of a legal settlement of its portion of the lead paint liability. However, $700,000 remains in the committee’s account, according to records from the Secretary of State’s office.

ConAgra and Sherwin-Williams each put in $3 million toward the effort. Dale Leibach, principal with Dale Leibach & Associates in Washington D.C., declined to comment on behalf of the defendants in the case.

Two other lawmakers also dropped bills as part of the agreement last year. AB 2136 would have specified paint manufacturers could be held jointly liable if they sold lead paint in California, without the burden of showing a particular manufacturer was at fault. AB 2803 would have defined lead paint as a public nuisance and stated companies that promoted its use could be held liable.