Lead Paint

A bill that would require landlords with units built before 1978 to protect their tenants from lead-paint hazards cleared the General Assembly tonight, along with a provision urging courts to penalize baseless litigation over the problem. HB644 , approved in a conference agreement by House and Senate, would extend lead-paint regulations that now cover all rental homes in Maryland built before 1950. The bill also authorizes the state to regulate repairs, renovations and painting in all homes where lead paint is present.

In October 2011, the Court of Appeals, Maryland's highest court, struck down provisions of the Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing Act that gave landlords immunity from being sued in some circumstances when children were poisoned by lead based paint in their properties. The court left intact the safety provisions of the act that require landlords statewide to meet certain minimum safety standards with respect to lead based-paint hazards. The court said that the immunity provisions were unconstitutional because they denied brain-damaged children their day in court and denied them a remedy for their injuries.

In October 2011, the Court of Appeals, Maryland's highest court, struck down provisions of the Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing Act that gave landlords immunity from being sued in some circumstances when children were poisoned by lead based paint in their properties. The court left intact the safety provisions of the act that require landlords statewide to meet certain minimum safety standards with respect to lead based-paint hazards. The court said that the immunity provisions were unconstitutional because they denied brain-damaged children their day in court and denied them a remedy for their injuries.

During this election cycle, it is increasingly popular in some circles to condemn government as wasteful, inefficient and incompetent. While there are thousands of federal, state and local government programs, each with its own index of success or failure, it might encourage those who believe government is a force for good to consider a number of interventions by the Baltimore City government (with federal and state assistance, in some instances)...

Annapolis lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano has been fined $13,000 by the Maryland Department of the Environment for allegedly violating state lead-paint regulations on two properties he owns in the capital. But Bereano disputes the state's charges, saying the homes he rents out are lead-free. According to a state complaint, an MDE inspector saw chipping, peeling or flaking paint on the exterior of one of the two properties on Pinkney Street in June. The department had been asked to check out the properties by the city of Annapolis, which also regulates rental housing.

A Baltimore landlord has been jailed by a city Circuit Court judge for failing after years of pressure to fix lead-paint poisoning hazards in all of his rental units, state officials said Thursday. Cephus Murrell, whose address is listed in court records as the 600 block of Laurel Hill Lane in Catonsville, was ordered jailed for contempt of court by Judge W. Michel Pierson until the landlord remedies lead-paint risks in all of his units or relocates the tenants to safe housing at his expense.

Baltimore, where thousands of buildings contain lead-based paint that can poison young children, has lost federal funding for abatement programs due to mismanagement of its most recent grant, officials said Monday. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials told The Baltimore Sun that the city health department failed to fix up enough homes under the latest $4 million grant, which expired in January, and as a result the city was deemed a "high-risk" grantee ineligible to receive more funds.

Maryland's highest court struck down Monday a key provision of state law that shielded owners of older rental housing from civil lawsuits - and potentially costly payments to victims - if they took precautions to protect children in their units from lead-paint poisoning. In a 7-0 ruling, the Court of Appeals declared that the 1994 lead-poisoning law violated the state's Constitution by denying a day in court to victims of the once-widespread environmental health scourge. In doing so, the court struck down what was considered a historic legislative compromise.

A Baltimore jury on Wednesday awarded $1.3 million in damages to a 17-year-old girl, finding that negligence by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City was a substantial factor in lead-paint poisoning she suffered as a young girl. Amafica Woodland lived in a now-demolished house in the Flag House Courts housing project in East Baltimore until she was nearly 3. Her attorney, Scott Nevin, said he expected the award to be reduced to $690,000 because of a state cap on non-economic damages.

The Baltimore housing department received a $2.9 million federal grant Friday to clean up poisonous lead paint found in the walls of thousands of city buildings. Baltimore will receive $2.9 million from the federal government to fix lead-paint hazards in more than 200 homes, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Friday — a vote of confidence in the city's efforts to resolve past problems with its abatement program. "It's a tremendous boost to our work in protecting children from lead-paint poisoning," said Ken Strong, an assistant city housing commissioner who began overseeing the program last year after Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake moved it from the health department to the housing agency.

Annapolis lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano has been fined $13,000 by the Maryland Department of the Environment for allegedly violating state lead-paint regulations on two properties he owns in the capital. But Bereano disputes the state's charges, saying the homes he rents out are lead-free. According to a state complaint, an MDE inspector saw chipping, peeling or flaking paint on the exterior of one of the two properties on Pinkney Street in June. The department had been asked to check out the properties by the city of Annapolis, which also regulates rental housing.

A Baltimore landlord with a long history of violating lead-paint poisoning laws was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in prison by a federal judge, who called the now-bankrupt businessman a "scofflaw. " Cephus Murrell, 69, of Catonsville sat impassively in U.S. District Court as Judge Benson E. Legg imposed the sentence, which included six months' home detention after release from prison. Murrell owned and managed 175 rental units in Baltimore, officials said, all built before lead paint was banned.

A Baltimore jury on Wednesday awarded $1.3 million in damages to a 17-year-old girl, finding that negligence by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City was a substantial factor in lead-paint poisoning she suffered as a young girl. Amafica Woodland lived in a now-demolished house in the Flag House Courts housing project in East Baltimore until she was nearly 3. Her attorney, Scott Nevin, said he expected the award to be reduced to $690,000 because of a state cap on non-economic damages.

A bill that would require landlords with units built before 1978 to protect their tenants from lead-paint hazards cleared the General Assembly tonight, along with a provision urging courts to penalize baseless litigation over the problem. HB644 , approved in a conference agreement by House and Senate, would extend lead-paint regulations that now cover all rental homes in Maryland built before 1950. The bill also authorizes the state to regulate repairs, renovations and painting in all homes where lead paint is present.

The Baltimore housing department received a $2.9 million federal grant Friday to clean up poisonous lead paint found in the walls of thousands of city buildings. Baltimore will receive $2.9 million from the federal government to fix lead-paint hazards in more than 200 homes, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Friday — a vote of confidence in the city's efforts to resolve past problems with its abatement program. "It's a tremendous boost to our work in protecting children from lead-paint poisoning," said Ken Strong, an assistant city housing commissioner who began overseeing the program last year after Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake moved it from the health department to the housing agency.

Baltimore's housing bureau does not have to pay a $2.6 million jury award to two siblings who say they were poisoned by lead paint when they lived in public residences as toddlers, a Maryland intermediate appellate court ruled Thursday. The decision, written by Judge Kathryn Grill Graeff of the Court of Special Appeals, hinges on the siblings not having filed notice of their claim within 180 days of their injury, as required by the state statute that governs personal injury suits against local governments.

When health activists and landlords can agree to support a bill that would address the problem of lead paint poisoning, it's worth taking notice.Dels. Sandy Rosenberg and Virginia Thomas have introduced a bill in Annapolis that would set up a lead paint fund to compensate poisoning victims and provide for prevention through better code enforcement. Modeled on the worker's compensation concept, the fund would substitute a predictable scale of reimbursement for the current practice of providing remedies through case-by-case litigation.

Baltimore's Housing Authority filed a motion Friday to prevent its property from being sold in order to satisfy a $2.6 million judgment in a lead paint exposure case, according to the agency. Last week, representatives from the Baltimore's sheriff's office tagged vehicles used by the Housing Authority in anticipation of seizing them to pay off a jury award. Siblings Antonio Fulgham and Brittany McCutcheon were provided the judgment in 2010, but the agency has resisted making payments while it appeals.

In the 1960s, Baltimore's leaders, driven by both desperate need and newfound vision, enacted a first-of-its-kind housing code for the City of Baltimore. Its provisions ensured that Baltimore's residents, including even the poorest, would be able to obtain, at a bare minimum, housing that was "fit for human habitation. " Of course, the slumlords reacted in the knee-jerk manner one would expect. (To be clear, most landlords are not slumlords. Instead, they follow the law and do their best to provide safe housing.)