## Facts

- The State of Rhode Island, through the Attorney General, sued former lead pigment manufacturers and an industry trade association, seeking relief in parens patriae and in a proprietary capacity.
- The State alleged that lead pigment in paint and coatings in buildings across Rhode Island constituted a statewide public nuisance.
- The complaint asserted defendants manufactured, promoted, and sold lead pigment despite knowledge of health risks, contributing to hazardous lead paint in older housing and childhood lead poisoning.
- The State sought equitable relief centered on a court-supervised abatement program requiring defendants to fund or implement remediation.
- After a mistrial, a second jury trial resulted in a verdict finding three manufacturers liable for a public nuisance and requiring participation in a court-supervised abatement program; another defendant prevailed.
- Defendants appealed the public-nuisance judgment and related equitable orders; the State cross-appealed on issues including the defense verdict and the denial of compensatory damages.

## Issues

1. Whether the widespread presence of lead paint in privately owned buildings constitutes an unreasonable interference with a “right common to the general public” required for public nuisance.
2. Whether product manufacturers can be liable in public nuisance when they lacked control over the alleged nuisance-causing instrumentality at the time the harm occurred.
3. Whether using public nuisance to obtain statewide abatement for harms from historical product sales improperly displaces product-liability doctrine and legislative policymaking.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Rhode Island reversed the judgment imposing public-nuisance liability on the defendant manufacturers.
- The court directed entry of judgment for all defendants on the public-nuisance claim.
- The court concluded the State’s theory failed as a matter of law because it did not satisfy public nuisance elements, including the “public right” and “control” requirements.
- The court indicated that other established theories, such as product-liability claims, remained the conventional route for product-related harms.

## Legal Principles

- Public nuisance requires: (1) unreasonable interference, (2) with a right common to the general public, (3) by a person with control over the instrumentality alleged to have created the nuisance when the damage occurred.
- A “public right” is an indivisible resource shared collectively by the public (e.g., air, water, public rights of way), not a collection of private injuries suffered in many locations.
- The interest of individual children not to be exposed to lead paint in private housing, even if widespread, is not itself a “public right” for public-nuisance purposes.
- Because abatement is the principal remedy in public nuisance, liability presupposes the defendant’s control over the nuisance-causing instrumentality when the relevant harm occurs.
- Public nuisance doctrine is not a substitute for products-based liability and is generally inapt for “stream of commerce” claims seeking broad cost recovery for harms caused by products long after sale and outside the manufacturer’s control.

## Conclusion

The Rhode Island Supreme Court held that a statewide lead-paint abatement claim could not be imposed on former lead pigment manufacturers through public-nuisance doctrine because the alleged harms did not involve interference with an indivisible public right and because the manufacturers lacked control over the lead paint when injuries occurred, requiring judgment for defendants on the nuisance claim.


State v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., 951 A.2d 428 (R.I. 2008)