Gamaliel Pomales, PPA v. Joseph Venezia ($157,000 settlement)

Lead Paint-Strict Liability

Type of Action: Lead Paint Statute.

Type of injuries: Lead Poisoning.

Court case no.: Boston Housing Court,

Civil Action No. 15830

Judge or jury- Not applicable.

Name of judge: Not applicable.

Special damages: Medical bills, approximately $5,000.

Damages awarded or settled. Settled.

Amount: $157,056, cash; $1,678,646 structured.

Attorney for plaintiff: Robert K Rainer, Chris A. Milne, Rainer & Rainer, Boston.

Attorney for the defendant- Withheld.

Name of case: Gamaliel Pomales, ppa, v. Joseph Venezia.

Insurance carrier: Withheld.

Highest offer: Withheld.

Other useful information:

This was an action for lead poisoning of the Plaintiff child, who was born November 2,1979, brought through the plaintiffs father- This case was settled approximately one month before the trial date.

Plaintiff was first diagnosed as suffering from lead poisoning in January 1981 when he had a lead level of 44 PB. The child's blood lead level remained in the 30-50 PB range for a period of several years through 1984.

Plaintiff had resided at several residences during the course of his lead poisoning Further, one of the residences had a change of ownership during his residence. The only defendant who was insured at the time of Plaintiffs lead exposure and residence was the owner of the premises where Plaintiff lived from Sept. 17, 1982, through June 1, 1983. This is the defendant with whom the case was settled.

It was expected that defendant at trial would raise causation of plaintiffs harm as a defense, given the short coincidence of defendant's ownership and plaintiffs residence.

Plaintiffs evidence at trial would have been that the child had overall general cognitive abilities comparable to the low average range, and that the child had significant language disturbance, deficits in verbal memory processing, and other significant language-based impairments. Additionally, the plaintiff child suffered psychological problems.

Plaintiffs expert witnesses were expected to testify that the lead intoxication during childhood was a substantial contributing factor to these problems along with family and social/ environmental variables. Plaintiffs expert testimony would have been that the psychological problems were secondary to the language problems caused by the lead poisoning. Defendant had designated experts who, it was expected, would testify that a history of psychological problems in plaintiffs family and other environmental problems were the cause of plaintiffs present problems and the lead exposure was not a substantial contributing factor.

As is the usual practice at Rainer & Rainer, a percentage of the attorney's fee from this settlement has been paid to a non-profit organization to provide funding for deleading of homes in the inner city.

Published with permission of Massachusetts Lawyers weekly.