JACKSON, MS - The Mississippi Supreme Court has thrown out a $7 million verdict against the Sherwin-Williams Co. Sherwin-Williams had argued that the company was not liable for the illnesses of Trellvion Gaines, a Mississippi boy who might have eaten paint chips contaminated with lead.

In 2009, a jury in Jefferson County, Mississippi, awarded $7 million in damages in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Trellvion Gaines and his mother, Shermeker Pollard.

In throwing out the verdict, the Supreme Court stated that the testimony of the plaintiff’s experts “did not present any scientific authority that an acute, asymptomatic ingestion of lead could lead to the alleged injuries.”

In the initial lawsuit, Sherwin-Williams provided corporate documents indicating that the company had stopped manufacturing interior lead-based paint in 1954 and all residential lead-based paint in 1972.