Closing arguments in "Thomas" are expected to take all day Thursday. Here's what our source in the peanut gallery in Milwaukee has reported:
"Closings started up again today at 9:20 AM Central Time with Don Scott [lead attorney for NL Industries]. Yesterday, Scott told jurors that there are four building blocks the plaintiff must prove in order for the jury to return a verdict finding the defendants were negligent for failure to warn.
"Those blocks are:
- When was the whie lead carbonate sold
- Did reasonable companies at that time use warnings on consumer products and advertisements
- What would the warning have said, based on the facts known at the time about childhood lead poisoning
- Would a reasonable warning, given at that time, have made a difference in preventing the alleged brain damage to Steven Thomas
"Scott went on to show that the evidence demonstrated the white lead carbonate was applied around the time the two houses in which Thomas lived were built - approximately 1900-1905 - or at the first repainting - no later than 1920.
"So Scott asked were reasonable companies then using warnings in ads for consumer products at that time frame.
"The answer Scott pointed out came from Gerald Markowitz's testimony in which he said he'd never seen a consumer warning on an ad piror to 1950."
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