TRENTON, N.J. - It became a landmark week for the future of lead paint litigation Friday when the New Jersey Supreme Court became the second High Court in four days to rule in favor of paint companies in their battles against public nuisance claims.

Four justices determined the Legislature did not wish to create a wave of nuisance litigation when it passed the Lead Paint Act, while Chief Justice James Zazzali feels the state's history of dealing with asbestos litigation should help decide the future of lead paint suits.

"(U)nder the Lead Paint Act, responsibility for the costs of abatement rests largely on the property owners. Indeed, that statute specifically empowers local boards of health to sue owners to recover abatement costs," wrote Justice Helen Hoens, part of a 4-2 majority.

Twenty-two municipalities and four counties were trying to sue Atlantic Richfield Co., NL Industries, Millenium Inorganic Chemicals, Sherwin-Williams, American Cynamid, Cytec Industries, ConAgra and DuPont. The Supreme Court had to decide if towns and counties have inherent police powers to stop a public nuisance.

The Court decided they did not, leaving the plaintiffs in the same boat as the City of St. Louis after its case failed in the Missouri Supreme Court Tuesday.

"Rather, were we to permit these complaints to proceed, we would stretch the concept of public nuisance far beyond recognition and would create a new and entirely unbounded tort antithetical to the meaning and inherent theoretical limitations of the tort of public nuisance," Hoens wrote.

"Nor is there any basis on which we can conclude that the Legislature, in using the term 'public nuisance'...expected that its use of that term would be the springboard for the expansive reading that plaintiffs suggest."

Those plaintiffs were represented by the firm Motley Rice, credited with the idea of using a public nuisance claim to sue paint companies and successful in each of its battles in Rhode Island, where the first state-powered suit was filed. Another one was recently filed in Ohio, and a decision on its validity is expected Wednesday.

Critics say public nuisance claims are a way around the shortcomings of a products liability case, like the now expired statute of limitations. Lead paint was outlawed in 1978, and companies stopped manufacturing it.

"Indeed, plaintiffs would have us read the Legislature's use of (public nuisance) to incorporate not only its historical meaning, but to support any and all other understandings of the term as if it had no clear meaning at all," Hoens wrote. "We do not understand the Legislature, in its careful approach to the lead paint problem, to have intended to sanction a tort-based theory of recovery essentially devoid of any of the tort's historical meaning."

The ruling delighted former Iowa Attorney General Bonnie Campbell, spokesperson for the defendants.

"With this long-awaited and significant ruling, the Supreme Court of New Jersey has taken an important step by joining Missouri, Illinois and other state courts in rejecting the distortion of public nuisance law," she said.

"Today the Court found that the plaintiffs' nuisance claim is inconsistent with the well-recognized parameters of public nuisance law, and that to find otherwise would be directly contrary to the legislature's pronouncements on both lead paint abatement programs and products liability law. These companies are not responsible for risks today from poorly maintained lead paint."

Justices Jaynee LaVecchia, John Wallace and Robert Rivero-Soto all joined in the majority, while Justice Barry Albin did not participate.

Justice Virginia Long joined Zazzali in his dissent. He said the Court has a duty to "reconcile outdated formulations of the common law with the complexities of contemporary society."

Zazzali dedicated several pages of his dissent to the health problems lead paint pose, including a study that found more than 3 percent of children in New Jersey are suffering from lead poisoning.

"I am in substantial agreement with the Appellate Division's conclusion that 'to allow plaintiffs' claim to proceed would not subvert the goals of the Lead Paint Act, and, in fact such action would foster those goals,'" Zazzali added.

"The Lead Paint Act and the public nuisance doctrine are complementary mechanisms aimed at the same evil."

Zazzali also felt the Court's history with asbestos litigation should determine its future with lead paint issues. In Stevenson v. Keene Corp., he says it was held that the environmental tort exception applied to a negligence claim against asbestos manufacturers.

"We affirmed the Appellate Division's conclusion that 'there can be no question but that the product itself and the risks it poses to people when introduced into the environment are both toxic and hazardous,'" Zazzali wrote.

"There is no meaningful difference between the manufacturing of asbestos and the production of toxic lead pigment."