Does the New Product-Liability Boom Lie... Inside the Walls?

[WSJ Law Blog]

Is this the new tobacco? Is this the new asbestos? They’re questions that get bandied about anytime a new category of potentially huge personal injury lawsuits appears on the horizon. Over the years, we’ve seen enough of these claims turn out to be largely empty hyperbole to take the question all that seriously anymore (manganese welding rods, anyone?). Still, the teensiest part of us wonders every time a new type of claim blossoms forth all at once. And now we’re wondering: Could it be Chinese Drywall?

We’re prompted to ask — or at least prompted to put the issue on your radar screen — by a story in Friday’s Journal by real real estate reporter Michael Corkery. According to the story, complaints about foul-smelling Chinese-made drywall that first emerged in a few dozen homes in Florida in January have spread to hundreds of homes in several states, fueling controversy over the Chinese import.

The allegation is that the construction material is making them sick. Homeowners are moving out of their houses, demanding help from lawmakers and, yes, filing lawsuits. (Click here and here for examples.)

The actual health effects of the drywall, which is commonly used to construct interior walls, are still unknown. While homeowners attribute bloody noses, sinus problems and headaches to the drywall, the Florida health department said there is no evidence that gases being emitted from the construction material pose a serious health risk.

But at the very least, it sounds smelly. “It seems most likely that it’s a nasty odor problem, as opposed to something acutely toxic,” said Morton Lippmann, a professor of environmental medicine at New York University, who reviewed recent Florida health department’s findings on Chinese drywall for The Wall Street Journal.

Other researchers said the sulfur-based gases coming from the drywall may exacerbate existing sinus issues and cause respiratory problems. The type of drywall at issue is made primarily from the naturally occurring mineral gypsum. Some of the drywall has been traced to a mine in the Shandong province of China, according to a spokeswoman for one drywall manufacturer, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co.

“Sulfur compound gases, even at low levels, have been found to cause respiratory problems,” such as asthma, said Nachman Brautbar, a toxicologist and clinical professor emeritus at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, who also reviewed the health-department findings for the Journal, and isn’t involved in the legal dispute. “This clearly needs more study.”

In China, some industry officials, well, see things differently.

“The U.S. credit crisis has caused the real estate market to collapse, and as a result domestic drywall manufacturers have seen their sales suffer and their product is relatively expensive compared to the Chinese-made drywall, so we should also consider these issues,” Xu Luoyi, head of the National Building Materials Industrial Technology Supervisory Research Center, said in a recent Chinese news report.