The Alliance for Healthy Homes undertook legal research to determine the scope of a private right of action for tenants and others under the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act. The result is a step-by-step guide, developed primarily by attorney Gregory Luce of Minneapolis-based Project 504, available to legal practitioners, community-based organizations, and others interested in how the Act could be used more effectively on behalf of impacted communities and to protect residents at highest risk.

The guide concludes that the Act's provision for a private cause of action for compensatory damages is an underutilized but potentially powerful tool for legal practitioners, especially attorneys who often represent low-income tenants. In addition, through its government and private enforcement provisions, the Act allows community-based organizations and other interested parties to bring 'citizen suits' against violators of the Act, which could compel landlords, agents, and others to clean up lead-contaminated properties.

In addition to analyzing the Act's private cause of action provisions, the guide contains sample pleadings, all of the relevant federal regulations, synopses of reported and unreported cases involving the private right of action, and additional tools for the practitioner to understand the Act.

The packet is broken into five sections [PDF] for easier downloading: The cover page (75 KB), Analysis (399 KB), Cases (1.2 MB), Laws (1.2 MB), and Tools (1.4 MB).