NEW YORK CITY -- The most recently threatening anti-corporate lawsuit juggernaut looks to have stalled in the driveway.

But the beast isn't ready to be junked just yet, warn the authors of a report released today on the national state of the lead-paint litigation industry.

'Judicial Lead-ership: State Courts Are Rebuffing the Trial Lawyers' Attack on Paint Manufacturers,' published by the Manhattan Institute's Center for Legal Policy (CLP) reports recent good news. Courts in four states have knocked down "public-nuisance" lead-paint suits in the past two months.

"The spate of recent common sense rulings throws into serious doubt earlier worries that lead paint might become the next asbestos," noted report author James Copland, who is also director of the CLP.

The rulings are a setback to what the report and associated website refer to as "Trial Lawyers Inc." (TLI) and the group's "founder and chairman" Ronald L. Motley. Motley is a veteran of class action suits against companies in both the tobacco and asbestos industries.

Motley's law firm, Motley Rice, pioneered the use of public nuisance lawsuits to force former lead paint makers to pay clean-up costs. Motley Rice won a major such case in Rhode Island two years ago, although the state Supreme Court is still mulling over that one.

But recent decisions on public-nuisance lead paint suits haven't broken TLI's way. Last month a Milwaukee County Circuit Court jury voted down a $53 million suit brought against paint-maker NL Industries by the City of Milwaukee, LNL reported.

Prior to that, Supreme Courts in Ohio, New Jersey and Missouri also gave the thumbs-down. Permitting such a case "would stretch the concept of public nuisance far beyond recognition and would create a new and entirely unbounded tort," wrote N.J. Justice Helen Hoens.

But Copland, the report's author, warns that a forthcoming decision by the R.I. Supreme Court is the key to future relief from such suits. The SC will rule on whether to overturn the multi-billion dollar decision won by TLI in 2005.

"If the decision stands, it could pave the way for lawsuits against countless other industries-think fast food, soft drinks, and alcohol-that legally and in good faith produced a product that was misused or later discovered to be harmful," Copland concludes.