My landlord failed to periodically paint my apartment as required by law. As a result of this neglect, we were compelled to paint the apartment ourselves. We went to a large national department store and purchased household paint. While the children were away for summer overnight camp, we used the paint to re-paint our entire apartment. We then carefully cleaned and mopped our entire apartment. Two years later our infant was diagnosed with lead poisoning. My landlord’s lawyers are claiming that we caused the lead condition when we re-painted – claiming that we bought lead based paint. How can we prove that this is not so?
The landlord’s claims are likely factually preposterous. Such assertions are sometimes presented by defendants and in almost in all cases have no validity in actual fact. This is because the Consumer Products Safety Commission banned the sale of lead based paint in all household paints starting on February 27, 1978. The only exception is for the sale of certain very limited industrial and agricultural paints that are not sold for household use and must have prominent warning labels against household use.