On Sat, 13 Aug 2016 17:10:27 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Saturday, August 13, 2016 at 4:11:37 PM UTC-4, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 8/13/2016 3:12 PM, wrote:


Here's a story that will keep you up nights like it is me. We are being sued by a tenant who occupied a rental home sixteen years ago. They had a child aged two. Allegedly the child was exposed to lead paint. The statute of limitations does not start for minors until they are adults, aged 18 in California. After sixteen years the insurance company doesn't have records of our policy. We don't have the policy.

There's a lesson for others.

Also, the policy they do have from 2002 has a lead "pollution" exclusion. Welcome to world of lead paint lawsuits.

Over the years I've thought about becoming a slumlord but then I read a
story like yours. Good luck, your case sure sucks.

It would seem to me that the defense would go something like this.
They have to prove that the child was harmed by the lead paint, right?
What proof do they have and if they have proof, why did they wait until
now to sue?

Because his parents didn't, and now he is, and your objection wouldn't
even be raised in court. That's the point of saying the SOL doesn't
start until the plaintiff is 18. It applies I think to all
negligence suits. Before that rule, children with parents who didn't
look out for their childrens' interests were just screwed.

If they have medical records, test reports while they
were living there, then they certainly would have contacted you at the
time.

Again, that doesn't matter.

So would the state, as they would almost certainly have been in
the loop.

Not if no one reported it. If the kid had the best parents, they
wouldn't have let him eat the paint at all, and they would have moved
if there was peeling lead paint, so we know that either there was no
problem, the parents didn't realize there was one, or they were
negligent parents, so why would they report a problem?

Or if they learned of it a year later, again, they should
have contacted you so that this danger could have been fixed before
it happened to the next tenant.

If the next tenants were only adults, they might not have cared if
there was flaking paint.

So, when did they first learn of this alleged lead poisoning and how
do they know it was your house that caused it? They may still be
within the statute of limitations, but the longer you let something
go, most times the harder it is to prove your case. What was the
history of the house in those 16 years? Anyone else find a lead
problem? Still own it?

That's all true and points in the OP's favor. OP, can you find any
of the other tenants, before or after?