BALTIMORE (Legal Newsline) – Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh recently announced a move to help lead paint poisoning victims.
In an effort to financially protect victims of lead paint poisoning, the office of the attorney general will look to block specific financial transactions where unregistered shell companies sought to obtain long-term settlement payments for just a fraction of their value from impaired and injured individuals. In many cases, the companies involved were not registered to do business in the state.
"As our actions show, we are concerned that victims of lead paint poisoning who may have significant impairments are entering into transactions that they may not understand and that may compromise their future," Frosh said. "And we are concerned about the practices of this industry, which induces injured Marylanders, in many cases, to give up these settlement payments for a fraction of their value."
The attorney general’s office initially looked into the issue in September and has reviewed 171 petitions filed by a single family of companies in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. It found that the companies had allegedly acquired payment rights with $21 million in net present value from injured Marylanders, yet had only provided about $6 million in cash.