California Lead Paint Lawsuit: $305M Settlement and Homeowner Relief

The California lead paint lawsuit settlement is a $305 million agreement reached in July 2019 between ten California cities and counties and three paint manufacturers — Sherwin-Williams, ConAgra Grocery Products, and NL Industries — to fund the removal of lead paint hazards from older homes across the state. The money, paid in six annual installments of $75 million, ended nearly two decades of litigation that had produced a landmark public nuisance ruling against the companies.¹

The three companies admitted no wrongdoing or liability under the terms of the settlement.²

Who Sued and What They Claimed

The case was filed in 2000 by ten California jurisdictions: the counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, Los Angeles, Monterey, San Mateo, Solano, and Ventura, along with the cities of Oakland, San Diego, and San Francisco.³ They named five defendants: Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries (formerly National Lead Company), ConAgra Grocery Products, Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), and DuPont.⁴

The core claim was straightforward: the companies had aggressively promoted lead-based interior paint for decades while knowing it was poisonous, particularly to children. Internal industry documents introduced at trial included a 1900 Sherwin-Williams publication calling white lead a “deadly cumulative poison” and a 1955 Lead Industries Association letter describing lead poisoning as “mainly a slum problem.”⁵

Why This Case Won When Others Lost

Previous lead paint suits in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Illinois, and Missouri had failed, typically because plaintiffs could not link paint in a specific home to a specific manufacturer decades after the fact.⁶ The California plaintiffs sidestepped that problem by framing their case as a public nuisance action rather than a product liability claim.

Under California law, a public nuisance claim requires proof that a defendant knowingly created or helped create a substantial and unreasonable interference with a public right.⁷ The plaintiffs argued that decades of promotional activity for lead paint, rather than its manufacture or sale, was the basis for liability. The court agreed and held that a defendant could be liable for the full cost of abatement if its promotion was even a “very minor force” in creating the aggregate presence of lead paint in California homes.⁸ Plaintiffs did not have to prove that any specific homeowner relied on the ads or that paint from a specific manufacturer was in any particular home.

The case remains the only one in the country to succeed against paint manufacturers on that theory.

From a $1.15 Billion Judgment to a $305 Million Settlement

On December 16, 2013, after a seven-week bench trial, Judge James P. Kleinberg of the Santa Clara Superior Court ruled that Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries, and ConAgra were liable for creating a public nuisance. He found that their promotional activities were “inherently misleading because [they] implicitly asserted that [lead paint] was safe for such use when it was not.”³ The claims against ARCO and DuPont were dismissed for insufficient evidence that either had sold lead paint for use in California homes.⁹

Kleinberg ordered the three companies to pay $1.15 billion into an abatement fund. Los Angeles County, with the largest share of affected housing, was awarded 55% of that total, roughly $632.5 million.¹⁰

The number shrank on appeal. In November 2017, California’s Sixth District Court of Appeal affirmed the liability finding but held there was insufficient evidence the defendants had actively promoted interior lead paint after 1950. The court struck the portion of the judgment covering homes built between 1951 and 1980, leaving abatement liability only for pre-1951 housing and sending the case back for a recalculation.⁷ The California Supreme Court declined review in February 2018,⁵ and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in October 2018.¹¹

NL Industries settled separately in May 2018 for $60 million. Plaintiffs described the amount as reflecting NL’s ability to pay rather than its share of liability; $45 million came from what county counsel called nearly all of NL’s liquid resources, with the remaining $15 million from insurance proceeds already on deposit.¹²

On July 10, 2019, all three companies reached the final global settlement of $305 million, split roughly evenly at about $101.7 million per company and paid over six annual $75 million installments.¹ The final figure came in well below both the original $1.15 billion judgment and the roughly $409 million that survived the appeal.

How the Money Is Divided

The $305 million was allocated among the ten plaintiff jurisdictions based on the amount of housing with lead paint in each area.¹³ Known shares include:

What Homeowners in Affected Areas Can Get

Each jurisdiction is running its own abatement program, but the general pattern is similar: free inspections for older homes, followed by free or subsidized professional removal of lead hazards, usually prioritizing households with young children or lower incomes.

In Los Angeles County, the Department of Public Health and the Los Angeles County Development Authority jointly run Lead Free Homes LA. The program provides free inspections and removal for homes built before 1951, prioritizes households with children under six, covers interior and exterior hazards, and offers temporary relocation during repairs when needed.¹⁷

Santa Clara County partnered with Habitat for Humanity East Bay Silicon Valley for its Lead Safe Homes Program, offering free inspections and repairs for homes built before 1978.¹⁴

San Mateo County, receiving its $11.7 million in annual payments through 2025, partnered with Rebuilding Together Peninsula. After a small pilot phase, the program is targeting 20 to 25 homes per year and focusing on lower-income families in housing built before 1950. The county estimates more than 50,000 units built before 1950 and over 150,000 built before 1980.¹⁶

San Diego’s program covers residential properties built before 1978 in low- to moderate-income areas, offering inspection, abatement, and temporary relocation. Property owners at or below 80% of the area median income pay nothing; those above that threshold pay a share of the cost.¹⁵

If you own or rent an older home outside the ten plaintiff jurisdictions, this settlement does not apply. The programs are funded by the settlement money paid to those specific counties and cities and are limited to properties within their boundaries.

The Insurance Ruling That Followed

Sherwin-Williams tried to recover its roughly $102 million share from its insurers, including underwriters at Lloyd’s of London, Zurich, and units of AIG and Chubb, in a coverage fight the company had opened in Ohio state court back in 2006.¹

On December 10, 2024, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously for the insurers. Justice Joseph T. Deters wrote that the abatement fund payments did not qualify as “damages” under Sherwin-Williams’ commercial general liability policies because the money was designed to prevent future harm to children rather than compensate for past injuries or property damage.¹ The ruling fit a broader 2024 pattern of courts declining to treat forward-looking remediation costs as covered tort damages.¹⁸

Where the Case Stands Nationally

California remains the outlier. Rhode Island’s Supreme Court rejected a similar public nuisance claim in 2008, ruling that public nuisance law had never before been applied to products and should not be.¹⁹ Courts in New Jersey, Illinois, and Missouri reached comparable conclusions.⁶

Whether the California outcome will inspire successful claims elsewhere remains unsettled. California jurisdictions have reportedly received inquiries from local governments in other parts of the country interested in pursuing similar actions.⁶ As of 2025, the Milwaukee School Board was weighing potential litigation against paint companies to recover $1.8 million it had spent on lead cleanup at seven schools, though legal experts warned that identifying which manufacturer produced the paint in any given building remains a steep hurdle.²⁰

1
Supreme Court of Ohio. Sherwin-Williams Co. v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s London, 2024-Ohio-5773
2
LA County Counsel. Lead Paint Litigation Provides $133 Million for Lead Paint Abatement
3
Santa Clara County Newsroom. Court of Appeal Upholds Landmark Judgment Ordering Removal of Lead Paint From Pre-1951 Homes
4
Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara. People of the State of California v. Atlantic Richfield Company et al., Case No. 1-00-CV-788657
5
Mother Jones. Lead Paint Toxic Lawsuit California
6
Maryland General Assembly. Lead Paint Testimony
7
Environmental Defense Fund. California Court Decision on Lead-Based Paint
8
U.S. Supreme Court. ConAgra Grocery Products Co. v. California, Petition for Writ of Certiorari
9
Investigate Midwest. Stunning Loss for Lead Paint Makers in California Lawsuit
10
LA County Department of Public Health. Lead Paint Public Nuisance Ruling
11
SCOTUSblog. The Sherwin-Williams Co. v. California
12
Santa Clara County Newsroom. Statement of Counsel on Behalf of the People of the State of California Regarding Settlement With NL Industries
13
Motley Rice. Lead Pigment Settlement Reached in CA Cities and Counties
14
Santa Clara County Department of Environmental Health. Learn About the Lead Safe Homes Program
15
Times of San Diego. City Offers Lead Paint Removal Services With $15M in Settlement Funds
16
San Mateo County. San Mateo County Establishes Program to Remove Lead Paint From Residential Properties
17
Lead Free Homes LA. Lead Free Homes LA
18
American College of Coverage Counsel. Ohio Justices Undo Paint Maker’s Lead Coverage Win
19
Tyson Mendes. Lead Paint Public Nuisance Litigation
20
Wisconsin Public Radio. Milwaukee School Board Considers Suing Paint Companies Over Lead Crisis