PROVIDENCE -- West Warwick girl impaired from lead poisoning receives state's second highest compensation settlement
Ashley Matthews, wearing a colorful skirt and clutching a doll, climbed onto her mother's lap in Superior Court yesterday and listened as a judge awarded the 9-year-old girl monthly payments that may extend for her entire life as compensation for being poisoned by lead paint in a West Warwick apartment.
Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr. read a settlement agreement that was offered by lawyers for Ashley and her mother's landlord and said it is "a fair one and will help her and her mother address her needs."
"Everyone is in agreement?" Fortunato asked. The lawyers, including a third lawyer assigned to look after Ashley, all said yes.
"How about you, Ashley?" Fortunato asked, looking down from the bench.
Ashley nodded and smiled.
"Well, good luck," the judge said.
Ashley was one of the children featured in a six-part series on lead-paint poisoning that was published in The Providence Journal a year ago.
The payments are scheduled to begin when Ashley turns 18. The total value of the award wasn't stated in court, but Vincent Greene, the lawyer for Brenda Matthews, Ashley's mother, said an annuity is being set aside that will provide monthly payments sufficient to support Ashley if she is unable to work. The annuity is guaranteed to pay out for 25 years but could keep paying much longer if the investments it is based on do well, according to Greene.
He said he believed the settlement was the second highest in Rhode Island for lead-poisoning cases. The highest award was won by a 7-year-old, Jalen Ravello-Hayre, in August 2000. He was poisoned by lead paint in a Smith Hill apartment where he lived with his mother.
"This won't change what happened," Greene said. "But at least she'll be taken care of."
Ashley is in third grade, but she's not able to do third-grade school work, her mother said yesterday.
"She isn't reading very well," Mrs. Matthews said. "Even simple words -- sometimes she struggles with them. And she's always losing things. Her memory isn't very good."
Ashley smiled sweetly, but had nothing to say yesterday.
Her mother believes Ashley was poisoned by lead paint when the family moved into an apartment on Providence Street in West Warwick in 1995.
As a toddler, Ashley seemed to be the family's brightest child. Mrs. Matthews said she could count, she knew her colors and part of the alphabet.
But a few months after the move, Ashley stopped reciting the alphabet and identifying colors, her mother says.
After a routine physical exam, a laboratory worker called Mrs. Matthews and told her to rush Ashley to the hospital. Her blood-lead level was 61, three times the level considered significantly poisoned.
Even trace amounts of lead ingested by small children who pick it up from old paint on floors or woodwork or who inhale it can cause an array of neurological problems that lead to loss of intelligence as well as behavioral problems.
A psychologist who evaluated Ashley two years ago found her average in many ways, but her verbal skills placed her in the mentally retarded range. Since then she has been enrolled in special-education programs designed to improve her verbal skills.
Mrs. Matthews sued her landlords, Adrien and Kristina Zarlenga. Yesterday's settlement was paid for by their insurer, Nationwide Insurance.
When Ashley was poisoned, Mrs. Matthews said she was totally unaware that deteriorating old paints can cause lead poisoning in young children.
"If I had known, I would have taken some sort of precautions," Mrs. Matthews said. "But now it seems like everyone is talking about lead poisoning these days. There are ads on TV and the buses. There are pamphlets in doctors' offices. At least now people should know to be careful."
