RI SC - Captain Ahab in Protocol Seating

No question in my obsessed mind.  Right there in protocol seating at the Rhode Island Supreme Court lead paint appeal will hover Captain Ahab. 

This decade-long litigation as well as all its subthemes of public nuisance and the right thing to do has consumed us.  Its our great white whale.  We will be in the courtroom in person or by our Internet hookup in hopes that the oral arguments will be the beginning of the end.

If the ruling primarily favors the defendants, with an overturn of the verdict or a new trial, the end could happen fairly quickly.  Or if the ruling isn't to the likings of Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries and Millennium Holdings, then we might all move to a whole other type of court: federal.  There are adequate constitutional issues, ranging from separation of powers to right to due process, for the case to have standing in federal jurisdiction.  After that, it's becoming more and more probable that we could be actually going to the U.S. Supreme Court.

If the ruling primarily favors the plaintiff, then it well might be the beginning of the golden age of public nuisance lawsuits, along with contingency agreements as the key enabler. Plaintiff attorneys can simplify this step in the legal process as a win for public nuisance and promote it.  I can't rule out any industry which wouldn't be a candidate for being sued as contributing to a public nuisance.

And that will be the start of something new.  Lead paint could have a few more hurrays in places like California but then will likely fade away. In the April edition of THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR William Tucker observed that lead paint "somehow lacks the pizzazz or practicality of previous bar crusades."  There could emerge something as big and enigmatic as Moby Dick to become attached to.