When Henry Sherwin founded Sherwin-Williams in Cleveland 160 years ago, the world was very different than it is today. The Civil War was just ending, the primary mode of transportation was horse and buggy, homes didn’t have electricity, and ready-to-use paints in the cans we buy today hardly existed. Instead, painting was done by professional painters who mixed their own custom paints from raw materials. It was extremely common then for paints to contain lead pigments because painters, chemists and government officials believed that lead paint using white lead carbonate pigment was the “gold standard” for quality and performance. In fact, federal, state and local governments required the use of lead paints in residential interiors and public buildings, including schools, through the 1950s and exteriors through the 1970s.

Responding to this public and government demand, thousands of companies and painters made and promoted lead paint and lead pigments. In the late 1880s, more than two dozen of these companies specializing in the manufacture of white lead carbonate pigments banded together to form the National Lead Trust, which dominated the market for white lead pigments. Experts estimate that the National Lead Trust controlled more than 70 percent of the white lead carbonate market, and the company that grew out of the Trust controlled 80-85 percent of that market by 1906. Sherwin-Williams was never part of the National Lead Trust or the company that grew out of it.

Sherwin-Williams history is distorted in the opinion project and the accompanying podcast commentary. We do not attempt to address all the omissions and inaccuracies, but a few examples demonstrate how little was done to confirm the “facts” presented.

First, the opinion project wrongfully concludes that “lead paint vaulted Sherwin-Williams to the pinnacle of the paint industry,” and “[w]hite lead pigment gave the company its start.” This is wrong.

It was Sherwin-Williams innovation and ingenuity in manufacturing specialized, ready-to-use paints for specific purposes that propelled our Company to success – NOT one-size-fits-all pure white lead paints. The new, ready-to-use paints that Sherwin-Williams introduced into the paint market used no lead pigments at all or mixed in non-lead pigments so they all had significantly lower amounts of lead than pure white lead paints.

The opinion project fails to mention that Sherwin-Williams use of non-lead pigments like zinc, lithopone and titanium outstripped, by orders of magnitude, our use of white lead pigments. Even historians hired by plaintiffs in lawsuits filed against Sherwin-Williams acknowledge that no company did more than Sherwin-Williams to develop and promote non-lead paints and pigments.

In fact, Sherwin-Williams first blockbuster product, Kem-Tone, was a non-lead, water-based interior residential paint. From its introduction in 1941, Kem-Tone outpaced sales of Sherwin-Williams best-selling exterior paint, SWP, many times over. Kem-Tone so dramatically moved the market away from lead paints to a “do-it-yourself” market that it was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark.¹

Second, Sherwin-Williams never owned a “huge lead mine in New Mexico.” From 1904 through 1943, Sherwin-Williams had an interest in a zinc mine in New Mexico through the Ozark Zinc Oxide Company at Joplin, Missouri to support its production of zinc oxide pigment.

Third, Sherwin-Williams never had unique knowledge or concealed from the public any medical or scientific information on the risks of lead. Sherwin-Williams did not set out to move the market away from lead paint because it held special knowledge about its potential risks to people living in homes. The opinion project makes two bold misstatements: that Sherwin-Williams knew lead paint was toxic but Americans did not, and that the Company “did their best to hide it from the American public.” This is completely false, and even the expert historians hired by plaintiffs in litigation have acknowledged this under oath.

Lead’s toxicity has been known and reported since ancient Greek and Roman times. It is shocking today, but lead was intentionally added to many products in the 1800s and early 1900s, including some medicines, nipple shields for breastfeeding, cosmetics and hair dye, to name a few. American magazines and newspapers, including the Plain Dealer – the very paper that published the opinion project – widely reported on lead’s toxicity in hundreds of articles.²

Knowledge and science about the risks of deteriorated lead paint evolved over time. When Henry Sherwin set out to make the best possible paints more than 160 years ago, neither he nor anyone else knew of the risks of low levels of lead in common household dust from deteriorated paint. The health effects of lead without visible physical symptoms were not recognized or known. No test to measure lead in blood existed until the late 1930s, and it was available only in three laboratories as of the 1950s. In the 1960s, blood lead levels below 60 µg/dl were thought to be normal. Today, the median level is 0.6 µg/dl.

In the mid-1970s, after Sherwin-Williams had removed lead from all its paints, scientific studies first began piecing together that lead dust from deteriorated and ill-maintained lead paint was a potentially harmful exposure pathway. Scientific consensus on that pathway was not reached until the 1980s. In fact, a plaintiff expert who is the Chief Scientist/Research Director for the National Center for Healthy Housing confirmed in a recently published book, “The identification of lead dust by the newer studies in the 1980s could be described as a ‘Eureka!!’ moment in the history of childhood lead poisoning.”

Fourth, the opinion project wrongfully concludes that we knew about the dangers of lead paint because we published an article in 1904 for employees under the headline “Dangers of White Lead.” That is plain wrong and directly contradicts admissions by plaintiffs’ experts and the historical record.

The opinion project fails to disclose that the findings regarding white lead reported in that article were based on bad science, and the article was disputed and quickly proven wrong. The reported faulty theory was that lead could escape into air through paint fumes as paint dried. Scientists conclusively proved, however, that aldehydes, not lead, caused strong odors in paint fumes and were responsible for the reported headaches and nausea. Even plaintiffs’ experts in litigation have admitted that the scientific theory behind the 1904 article was wrong. Thus, the article did not inform Sherwin-Williams, or anyone else, of risks to “inhabitants of a house painted with lead colors,” because the whole basis of the article was invalid. And it has nothing to do with the risks of today – lead in household dust from deteriorated paint.

The opinion project also fails to mention that this 1904 article wasn’t just printed by Sherwin-Williams for employees before it was disproved. Sherwin-Williams also distributed it outside of the Company, and the same article also was printed by newspapers across the country.

Fifth, the opinion project falsely claims that the 1900 Chameleon article demonstrates that Sherwin-Williams “knew” of risks to children inside houses from tiny amounts of lead in dust from chalking. Sherwin-Williams began making mixed-pigment SWP brand paint in 1880. We always were transparent in customer brochures that SWP used a mix of pigments, only one of which was lead. We explained to customers in those brochures that we added zinc to counteract the softness of white lead, which reduced something called “chalking.” Chalking is when small particles of pigment are released from a painted surface due to the breakdown of the paint’s binder over time. Prolonged exposure to sunlight, rain and high humidity contribute to chalking. As a result, it was viewed as an exterior paint issue. As the brochures noted, chalking was “no secret.” In fact, paint chemists and professional painters alike viewed a small amount of chalking as a good thing, because it left the surface in better condition for repainting.

The 1900 Chameleon article explains how mixing zinc and lead together counteracts excessive chalking and results in a lower lead content in the paint. Also, as the article says, it was “familiarly [widely] known” that lead could be poisonous if ingested. At the time though, no one thought people were ingesting lead from painted surfaces inside their homes. The concern was for painters who got lead paint on hands, faces and beards from working with it day in and out. So, the 1900 Chameleon article had nothing to do with risks of tiny amounts of lead making their way into household dust from deteriorated paint. To claim otherwise distorts the Chameleon article and rips it from its historical context.

Sixth, the opinion project falsely states that in 1904, “[a] Queensland, Australia, doctor wrote an article blaming lead paint on woodwork inside homes for a rash of poisoning cases.” That article, along with later scientific articles by the same author (and others), explained that because Queensland is semi-tropical, the sun was so hot that exterior paint – not interior paint – turned to powder. The Australian scientists described the “special conditions” of the environment in Queensland, as compared to other parts of Australia, which is why Australia did not ban the use of lead paint at the time. Instead, Australia restricted lead in exterior (not interior) paint that was applied within reach of children – and it did not do that until 1922.

Also, global communication was very different in the early 1900s. The Australian research was not published in any American newspapers, and there is no evidence that Sherwin-Williams was aware of these studies from the opposite side of the world.

Seventh, the opinion project claims that Sherwin-Williams “pioneered mass marketing” and marketed in ways no one had marketed before. The opinion project leaves out the critical context: the advertising campaign that was the largest of its kind for any paint company at the time was for Kem-Tone, Sherwin-Williams lead-free, water-based paint that created the do-it-yourself market. Before the Kem-Tone campaign, our advertising was like the advertising of many other paint companies at the time.

Eighth, Sherwin-Williams “Painting Guide” pictured in the opinion project did not recommend SWP for furniture. It recommended Enameloid and Old Dutch Enamel paints for furniture, both of which were made from zinc oxide, not white lead.

Ninth, the opinion project claims that, in 1909, some countries outright banned lead paint inside buildings because lead paint was a poison that was harming people. But experts agree that the restrictions were motivated by occupational concerns for workers and painters who were regularly exposed to large amounts of lead and exhibited physical symptoms, not for concerns related to children living in houses. It was the International Labor Organization, after all, that proposed the restrictions. Most countries, believing painters could manage the risks, chose not to ban the use of white lead, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and about half of the European countries.

Tenth, the opinion project wrongfully claims that the Lead Industries Association acted as the “agent” of Sherwin-Williams. Every court to consider this has rejected that claim. The opinion project also discusses things the Association did almost a decade after Sherwin-Williams ended its membership. The opinion project also fails to mention that even when Sherwin-Williams was a member, it was in a lower-tier membership category, minimally participated and outright refused to support or participate in the Association’s White Lead Promotion Campaign.

Eleventh, the opinion project and podcast wrongfully imply that the Rhode Island Supreme Court wanted to hold Sherwin-Williams liable for lead paint abatement, but was forced to overturn the trial court verdict due to a legal “technicality.” The fact is that the Rhode Island Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the case “should have been dismissed at the outset,” that Sherwin-Williams was not liable for any public nuisance and that “the state has not and cannot allege any set of facts to support its public nuisance claim.”

The fact is that Sherwin-Williams consistently has won lawsuits asserting claims related to lead paint. Time and again, courts across the country have thrown out public nuisance lawsuits by government entities and school districts,³ as well as class actions⁴ and personal injury claims.⁵ Sherwin-Williams has never lost a case applying risk contribution theory – a jury reached a unanimous verdict in Sherwin-Williams favor in one case, and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals twice ruled in Sherwin-Williams favor requiring dismissal of five other cases.⁶ Dozens of state and federal court decisions, each applying their own law to our facts, aren’t wrong.

        ¹ See Am. Chemical Soc., Waterborne Interior Paint: Kem-Tone Wall Finish, https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/kem-tone.html.

        ² “Poisonous Water Pipes,” Weekly Plain Dealer, Dec. 2, 1857; “Hundreds of Persons Poisoned with Lead Ground up with Flour,” Weekly Plain Dealer, June 13, 1866; “Metals Kill Workers; Lead is Deadliest,” The Plain Dealer, Oct. 1, 1905; “Lead Poisoning,” The Plain Dealer, June 17, 1918.

        ³ See, e.g., Atl. Richfield Co. v. Cnty. of Montgomery, 294 A.3d 1274 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2023); State of Rhode Island v. Lead Indus., Ass’n, Inc., 951 A.2d 428 (R.I. 2008); In re Lead Paint Litig., 924 A.2d 484 (N.J. 2007); City of St. Louis v. Benjamin Moore & Co., 226 S.W.3d 110 (Mo. 2007); City of Chicago v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 823 N.E.2d 126 (Ill. App. Ct. 2005); Harris Cnty. v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., et al., No. 2001-21413, Order (215th Tex. Dist. Ct. May 27, 2005); Quitman Cnty. Sch. Dist. v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., et al., No. 2:02-CV-00004, Order of Dismissal, Dkt. No. 165 (N.D. Miss. Aug. 21, 2003); Jefferson Cnty. Sch. Dist. v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., et al., No. 5:01-CV-211BN, Order, Dkt. No. 165 (S.D. Miss. Nov. 15, 2002).

        ⁴ See, e.g., Lewis v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., 793 N.E.2d 869 (Ill. App. Ct. 2003); Cofield v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., No. Civ.A. MJG-99-3277, 2000 WL 34292681 (D. Md. Aug. 17, 2000); German v. Fed. Home Loan Mortg. Corp., No. 93 CIV. 6941 (MBM), 1998 WL 812478 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 16, 1998); Jefferson v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., 106 F.3d 1245 (5th Cir. 1997); City of Phila. v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., 994 F.2d 112 (3d Cir. 1993); Swartzbauer v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., 794 F. Supp. 142 (E.D. Pa. 1992); Hurt v. Phila. Hous. Auth., 806 F. Supp. 515 (E.D. Pa. 1992).

        ⁵See, e.g., Cannon v. Armstrong Containers Inc., 92 F.4th 688 (7th Cir. 2024) (170 plaintiffs); Burton v. Am.

Cyanamid Co., 588 F. Supp. 3d 890, 910 (E.D. Wis. 2022) (3 plaintiffs); Sherwin-Williams Co. v. Gaines ex rel. Pollard, 75 So. 3d 41 (Miss. 2011); Thomas ex rel. Gramling v. Mallett, 795 N.W.2d 62 (Wis. Ct. App. 2010); Godoy ex rel. Gramling v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 768 N.W.2d 674 (Wis. 2009) (after this victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court on design defect and other theories, plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the case); Jackson v. Glidden Co., No. 87779, 2007 WL 184662 (Ohio Ct. App. Jan. 25, 2007); Smith v. Lead Indust. Ass’n, Inc., No. 24-C-99-004490, 2003 WL 25437647 (Md. Cir. Ct. 2003); Brenner v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 288 A.D.2d 869 (N.Y. App. Div. 2001); Sabater ex rel. Santana v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., 704 N.Y.S.2d 800 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2000) (4 plaintiffs); Wright v. Lead Indus. Ass'n, Inc., No. 1896 Sept Term 1996, 1997 WL 34717752 (Md. Ct. App. Oct. 21, 1997); Skipworth by Williams v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., 690 A.2d 169 (Pa. 1997); Santiago v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 794 F. Supp. 29 (D. Mass. 1992), aff'd, 3 F.3d 546 (1st Cir. 1993).

        ⁶ A verdict for 3 plaintiffs in 2019 was overturned because a federal appeals court found the case never should have proceeded to trial in the first place. See Burton v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 994 F.3d 791 (7th Cir. 2021).