www.charlesjeromeware.com "Here to make a Difference."
Premier defense attorney Charles Jerome Ware is Maryland-based, nationally known and respected, and is ranked by his many satisfied landlord clients as well as his legal peers as one of the best lead paint and lead poisoning defense attorneys in the United States. For an initial courtesy consultation, contact Attorney Charles Ware at (410) 720-6129. He can help you when you are being sued in a lead paint or lead poisoning lawsuit.
Baltimore, Maryland is considered by many to be "ground zero" for lead paint and lead poisoning in the United States. Certainly, lead -contributing health problems are major in this area. And, Maryland has a solid history of using leaded products --- particularly white lead --- going back to Colonial times. One of several sources of lead (Pb) in the Baltimore area is "legacy" (old) lead-based paint in pre-1978 built residential housing. Residential rental property landlords should be ever mindful of my three keys to avoiding and/or winning lead paint poisoning claims and lawsuits: (1) MAINTENANCE of the residential rental property; (2) NOTICE to tenants living in the residential rental property; and (3) DOCUMENTATION/RECORD-KEEPING on the tenants and the property itself.
Lead (Pb) has been use in the world for over 6,000 years. It is not dissolvable in water, does not dissipate, does not decay, nor burn. This stuff just lasts, and lasts, and lasts. It is guesstimated that more than 10 million metric tons of lead residue exists today in earth's environment. Lead is everywhere in the "civilized" (industrial) world. In sufficient quantities, it can be very harmful to the human body; particularly in children under age 6 years, when ingested or inhaled into the body. It should be stated that "uninterrupted" lead paint is not considered harmful to the body; it is "interrupted" (e.g., chipped, peeled, cracked, dust, etc.) lead paint --- when inhaled or ingested into the body --- that can be harmful to the body.
In 1978, the Federal government ( U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) passed a law banning the use of lead paint with more than 0.06% lead content or 600 ppm from residential and other consumer use. Interestingly, in 1951 Baltimore banned the use of lead pigment in interior paint in Baltimore housing; the first such ban in the United States. A lead-based paint is considered by the U.S. government to be any paint that is 0.5% lead by weight.
Starting in 1996, owners of houses built prior to 1978 became required to inform buyers of all known information on the presence of lead-based paint pursuant to the Federal Lead-based Paint Disclosure Regulation.
The more-mentioned Federal lead (Pb) notice law is the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992, commonly known as TITLE 10, which was passed in an attempt to reduce the number of lead poisoning victims in the United States. TITLE 10 is enforced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and it enforces regulations related to residential rental property buildings that were constructed before 1978.
Landlords should be aware that only Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE)-certified contractors and workers are allowed, under Maryland law, to perform lead abatement or removal work, and any other work on residential rental properties where lead (Pb) can be a problem or issue.
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