A court in California ordered the company to pay a fine of $ 1,15 billion for advertising 114 years ago

American companies are trying to challenge the decision of the state of California in which they must pay a fine for advertising lead paint. The company called the decision illegal, since the ads were placed over a hundred years ago. The Wall Street Journal found out the details of a case that began in 2014.

Фото: Depositphotos

Sherwin-Williams (SWP), along with ConAgra Grocery Products and NL Industries, has been producing lead paint since 1904, says Rtvi. At that time, the production and advertising of this product was legal. In 1978, the US government banned the use of lead paint in residential buildings. Then the US Environmental Protection Agency decided that lead adversely affects physical and psychological health: in particular, children can slow down growth or development.

California authorities are confident that manufacturers must take responsibility, because they already knew at the time that such paint was unsafe. Employees of Sherwin-Williams in internal correspondence call lead white "deadly poison."

In 2014, a California court ordered producers of lead paint to pay a total of $ 1,15 billion to the state fund to support the health of people who suffered from such whites. In 2016, the appeals court decided that companies should be responsible only for advertising after 1950, because there is no evidence that they advertised paint before. The fine could be reduced to $ 409-730 million.

But California authorities found advertisements for this paint in the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union 1904 newspapers of the year. The banner ad read: “Use the SWP paint in your home, and every time you will have fun and save money.”

Therefore, the court decided to uphold the decision on a fine of $ 1,15 billion.

A representative of a law firm that protects Sherwin-Williams’s interests said the company had stopped paint production with lead in 1943. Paint manufacturers are trying to challenge the fine in the Supreme Court. The defendants argue that a California court decision violates their rights to free speech and due process. In turn, the California authorities stated that the Supreme Court has no reason to consider this case.

Representatives of the advertising industry are confident that if the court’s decision remains in force, this will set a precedent. Manufacturers of any product will have to think about the potential risk of legal liability many years after the creation of advertising.

Especially carefully it will be necessary to use statements about the effects of products on health, because the findings of scientists about them may change over time.

Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, said that clairvoyance companies could not be demanded and that the court’s decision would affect many other product categories. The director general of the McCann Worldgroup network of creative agencies, Harris Diamond, believes that the California court goes too far, and the case can lead to serious consequences.

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