Law And More

Post-Lead Paint - Some Serious Green

The consensus on Wall Street seems to be that the defendants will triumph in the lead paint public nuisance litigation - eventually.  That's the rub: The When.  Whenever that is, the stocks of defendants such as Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries, and Millennium Holdings will soar.

But that's only part of the serious green.  The other part is that once the lead paint defendants are up from under the yoke of public nuisance litigation they will be expected to report on how they are creating products and processes that help save planet earth. After all, the business is chemical-intensive and involves global shipment of weighty materials.

The platform for that part is likely already being erected.  But there's more.  From a public-relations standpoint, I know that the public, consumers, government, NGOs, and even vendors want to hear about breakthrough developments aka technological ones. 

For instance, on monster.com, a global paint company in Ohio is running a help-wanted for a Virtual Paint Technician.  The job description reads:

"This position will deliver project processing by using Proprietary software to create projects in the Color Marketing Services group.  Incumbent will be responsible for creating templates that are used to send to our clientele for color and design ideas."

Since the company placing the help-wanted is global, immediately what jumps out are:

• This virtual position is saving millions of gallons of oil that would have been used in jet, boat, and truck/car fuel.

• This position represents the beginnings of the Wiki-ing of the company's global best and brightest.  Not only does this save in transportation costs but a cooperative model usually yields better i.e. green ideas that are cheaper for consumers.

• Technology is the DNA for doing more with less, i.e. less chemicals, less materials of all kinds, less risk to the environment.

Other sprouts of green in the paint industry?  Here's what gets attention:

• Re-usable and/or biodegradable containers.

• Reduced shipping via sending ingredients that can be mixed in the plant or store vs. heavy gallons of paint and coatings transported long ways.

• Re-cycling centers for left-over paint and coatings.  Consumers will be compensated for depositing the left-overs.  And, eventually, applying technology to better calculate how much paint is needed for a job.

• Donating and/or discounting paint to neighborhoods in which foreclosed property has become a blight.  Those purchasing homes will receive that benefit.

• Establishing the chemical industry's equivalent of the World Economic Forum to research and pool best green global practices.  Monthly members will meet electronically through something like iChat to push for progress.  The group's Wiki will be open to anyone who wants to share good ideas and know-how.

Paint companies wanting to tell us about doing serious green can leave a comment or contact Mgenova981@aol.com. 

A RI Story - Global Warming & Its Profiteers

"Beige. And very muted shades of that."  Those were the instructions I gave to what I guess they call The Color Consultant in the upscale paint stores like Sherwin-Williams.   

That's how my finance and I got started in profiting from global warming.  When we leased our getaway in Rhode Island we had a clause inserted allowing subleasing. I turned that 800-square-feet into boring rentable beige just as the heat wave took hold last weekend.  A client offered her first born to take over the lease. 

Now we can move onto the more efficient plan: Buying something, anything that isn't in Connecticut. We call our life here The Tale of  Many Many Sorrows.  The smart money is betting that we will never move from this sweet suffering. It provides too good copy for our writing. "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz never went to therapy because he was afraid happiness would steal away his talent.

URGENT ADVICE: Paint companies should study us risk-averse women who don't budge off offbeige.  Migrate us to a broader color scheme and we will paint more and more often. 

Raw Milk - The Only Thing Missing at Woodstock

Raw milk is right behind homeschooling in California in being the symbol of the 2nd CounterCulture.  Current CA Attorney General Jerry Brown seemed politically astute in going to bat for the homeschoolers.  He wants to liberate them from burdensome kinds of certification. 

Now, CA State Senator Dean Florez [D-Shafter], reports E.J. Schlutz of the FRESNO BEE, might be making the same sort of move on behalf of the 40,000 residents of the state who swear by raw milk.  They claim this non-pasturized milk contains "helpful" bacteria that can perform medical feats ranging from curing skin diseases to delivering a sense of well-being.  Maybe.  But along with those supposedly "helpful" bacteria there have been potentially lethal ones. 

Bill Marler of Marler Clark Law Firm, which specializes in food-borne diseases, has represented plaintiffs based in CA who have drunk raw milk.  That milk, read the court complaints, has been contaminated by E. Coli, Campylobacter and/or Listeria.  With children this can be deadly or, at best, result in kidney damage.  Marler writes on this issue on his blog as well as in mainstream media. He is frequently in Washington D.C. delivering testimony on food safety. [Here you have a copy of recent Marler testimony Download testimonycongress2008.doc]

State Senator Florez wants to overturn a Superior Court ruling that would subject raw milk to the same tests for bacteria which pasteurized milk must undergo.  He will sponsor legislation, says Schultz, that "would eliminate bacteria limits that treat raw milk like pasteurized milk.  Intead, labs would test more for specific disease-causing pathogens, such as E. Coli."  Critics of that Court ruling claim that regulation would destroy the "helpful" bacteria. Instead, they want the raw milk only tested for very specific bacteria. To many others, though, that opens a Pandora's box of possible ways consumers of raw milk can be sickened.

Those of us old enough to recall the 1st CounterCulture know the religious-like fervor surrounding the beliefs popular then.  There was no reasoning with the zealots.  Unfortunately, the same passions seem to propel the raw-milk movement.  If it didn't endanger children, encouraged to drink up what's "good for them," this would just be another typical American fad.  Who knows, it might even, like much of pop culture, become a big export.  But this claim of medical magic can lead to children's becoming sick or even dying. 

Disclosure: Several months ago I assisted Marler Clark with preparing background material on the possible dangers of raw milk.

Lead in Soil, An Unethical Fertilizer Experiment

Ironically, an unethical study involving lead was conducted in Baltimore, an early pioneer in protecting children from lead. 

The two-year $446,231 study was funded with the Housing and Urban Development Department federal grants. The researchers spread fertilizer made from human and industrial waste on lawns in poor neighborhoods.  Co-written by Rufus Chaney, a U.S. Agriculture Department research agronomist, the scientists sought to find out if the fertilizer would bind with the lead in the soil.  The hypothesis was that such binding would render the lead harmless if children ingested the soil.

The horror of this study, as reported by ASSOCIATE PRESS writers John Heilprin and Kevin S. Vineys, is that the low-income participants were not fully informed about the ingredients of the fertilizer.  In exchange for their participation they were given food coupons and promised green lawns. The reporters indicate that there is no documentation of any follow-up medical care.

According to the findings of the researchers, the hypothesis proved out. Heilprin and Vineys say, "The Baltimore study concluded that phosphate and iron in sludge can increase the ability of soil to trap more harmful metals including lead, cadmium and zinc, causing the combination to pass safely through a child's body if eaten." The results were published in research journal SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT in 2005.

Of course, the lack of transparency in this experiment echoes those horrific venereal disease studies done down south on men of color.  The promising findings in the Baltimore research don't make up for the way the vulnerable population was treated.  There has to be a pile-on of all federal and state agencies associated with childhood lead poisoning to investigate this and punish those responsible.   

Green in Sherwin-Williams' TV Ad - It Might Sell More Than Paint

The latest TV commercials for Sherwin-Williams' paints are themed green, in more than one way. 

There's the good-for-the-environment part.  There is also the green, as in spring, part.  The third flash of green is in the price: $7 a gallon.  Underlying all this is the message to women like myself that painting is something we can not only do but might enjoy.  Prominent in the commercials are those photos of the wide-mouth easy-pour paint container that can be closed just as easily.

The question here and for all marketers, whatever their product or service, is: Does the environmental message sell?  Experts opining on this in publications like AD AGE indicate it's a mixed bag.  Overall, it's not something to bet the ranch on.  It could add value, but maybe not much or maybe none at all.

In the Sherwin-Williams' situation, the good-for-the-environment theme may play a unique role because the company has been a defendant in a number of lead-paint lawsuits, public nuisance and personal injury.  With the Supreme Court oral arguments in Rhode Island scheduled for next month to overturn the February 22, 2006 lead paint verdict against Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries and Millennium Holdings, this commercial might be selling more than $7-a-gallon paint.

CA's GHG Crusade - Who Gets Hurt? Get In Line

"This law is the worst anti-business legislation that Sacramento has passed," says Alene Taylor, county supervisor in a California rural area.  She continues, "It's going to make it really hard to site businesses here." LEGAL NEWSLINE writer Valarie Gibbons quotes Taylor in her article on state attorney general Jerry Brown's GHG crusade.  There's a long line of distressed businesspeople in CA complaining about the law requiring counties to review the environmental impacts of any new development.

Brown is using hardball tactics to force compliance.  He is conducting workshops educating county government leaders how they can comply.  Don't follow those mandates and they will wind up in court. 

All the way, the governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is backing this crusade.  The new Watch California is now focused on how these mandates will actually affect economic development, whether it be the dairy or high-tech businesses.

Note: No word yet on any decision in the plaintiff petition to appeal the no-contingency ruling in the Santa Clara, CA lead paint public nuisance case.

CA's Great Leap Forward - But Suppose the End Justifies the Means

China's Mao Zedong called his transformation of a backward society to a modern economy The Great Leap Forward.  One of his tools was re-education.  Till today his methods remain controversial but most agree they worked.  And we may be concluding the same thing about California Attorney General Jerry Brown's aggressive anti-GHG emissions tactics, within and outside the state. 

Most recently, as Rob Luke reports on LEGAL NEWSLINE, Brown expanded his education workshops for local government which demonstrate how they can avoid GHG emissions lawsuits. The workshops will take place in five locations. About 534 CA mayors, planners and county supervisors have been invited to attend.   Brown conducted his first education briefing of this kind last November at the annual meeting of the state's county officials. His three key recommendations were and are:

• High-density housing
• Reductions in parking
• Changes to building design.

Government entities embracing these sorts of measures in the name of reducing GHG emissions are likely to find themselves lawsuit-proof.  Coercion of various types are often needed for change which later is designated as progress.  Think the polio vaccine, compulsory education and stiff and certain penalties against drunk driving. 

Therefore, we who are wary of the activist state attorneys general will have to wait out this one.  Since diverse corporations are anticipating being sued for in some way contributing to global warming, they might take this sort of pro-active approach against being sued.  They could ask government entities, plaintiff lawyers and the public for education on reducing GHG emissions.

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Cadmium Batteries Phased Out in US in response to Chinese Health/Environmental Problems

In a global marketplace, the bell that tolls, which John Donne used a metaphor to describe mankind's interconnectedness, is being heard across continents and oceans.  Although nickle-cadmium batteries cause no health hazards for the U.S. children who play with toys powered by them, U.S. companies Toys "R" Us inc. and Mattel Inc. are phasing them out.  They did cause health problems for the workers in China who manufacture those batteries and pollution in that country.

This move, however, is not entirely self-disinterested for U.S. toy makers.  As Jane Spencer reports today in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, this change "comes as toy makers are scrambling to rid their products of toxins, after a wave of recalls last year triggered panic about the safety of Chinese-made toys.  The bans on cadmium batteries are a sign the industry's safety concerns are beginning to extend to workers in China."  And it is in China where many of toys sold in the U.S. are manufactured.

A total systems approach by the U.S. toy companies to ensuring health and safety of everyone in the loop will help reassure consumers and governments that those companies are committed to reform.

EPA Suit - CA Swaggers with Moral Certitude

"Boston Legal" was one of the very few bits of pop culture to take on green.  This cause is right up there with World War II as being sacred.  That's why California's lawsuit of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should cause concern among not only lead paint watchers but all tort reformers.  As we know, a lead paint public nuisance lawsuit is pending in Santa Clara County in CA.  And, as a trend-setter, the kinds of lawsuits in this state can open a whole new Pandora's box of litigation.

Already, as THE WALL STREET JOURNAL reports, Massachusetts is expected to join in this lawsuit filed because the EPA denied CA's "first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs."There's more.  So far at least 16 other states will probably adopt CA's tough emission standards. Twelve others have already adopted them. Powerful attorneys general - e.g. the rising star Andrew Cuomo - are championing this aggressive stance on GHG emissions. And it has been CA AG Jerry Brown, with the total support of CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who put this all in play.

Clearly, this is a flow of power back to the states.  And it's at the state level that so much tort abuse, such as forum-shopping, has occurred.  The moral certitude attached to this cause can embolden CA as well as other states to also "do what's right" on other issues, be it lead paint or alleged securities fraud.

"Boston Legal" Takes on Green

Okay, the magic is off "Boston Legal." The writing is uneven in quality and some of the once-interesting characters such as Clarence and Jerry aka Hands have morphed into caricatures.  But, the series does continually introduce current themes and attempts to deal with them objectively.

Tuesday night's episode took on green.  It all started when Denny Crane, wearing his Christmas blinking Antler head-dress, met with his client, an executive for a green cause.  The latter chastised Denny for the waste of energy represented by the blinking lights as well as other firm activities which were leaving a carbon footprint.  An altercation led to a lawsuit.  The client claimed Denny defrauded the firm by presenting itself as green.  Denny's defense was that no one understands what's the best approach to go green.  Denny won.  The victory can give us courage to stand toe-to-toe with green bullies.

Another theme was the subprime mortgage mess.  Clarence was losing his house when his mortgage rate shot from 2 to 12.  But the most engaging theme is the continuous one of the complexity of the Denny and Alan friendship.  Are the two gay - they held hands at the MD's - and does it matter?