Posted on 08/26/2015 7:55:52 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
Before his April death after being severely injured in police custody, before this hollowed-out city plunged into rioting, the life of Freddie Gray was a case study in the effect of lead paint on poor blacks. The lead poisoning Gray suffered as a child may have contributed to his difficulties with learning, truancy and arrests — all of it culminating in a 2008 lead-paint lawsuit and a windfall of cash locked inside a structured settlement. By late 2013, Gray was striking deals with Access Funding.
People like Gray who have suffered lead-poisoning as children are especially vulnerable to predatory transactions. Many are impulsive and mentally disabled, but not so much that the law regards them as incapable of acting on their own behalf, as long as they’re 18.
“A lot of them can barely read,” said Saul E. Kerpelman, who estimates he has defended more than 4,000 victims of lead poisoning, nearly all of them black. “They have limited capacity. But they fall through a crack. If they were severely disabled enough, you could file a court petition to have a trustee manage their property. But they’re not disabled enough.”
Over the past two decades, state legislatures and the U.S. Congress have passed measures to protect vulnerable people selling structured settlements. In 2000, Maryland inked the Structured Settlement Protection Act, which enumerated a series of requirements. First, a seller must seek the counsel of an independent professional adviser. Then the proposed deal must go before a county judge, who decides whether that agreement reflects the seller's best interests.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The lead poisoning Gray suffered as a child may have contributed to his difficulties with learning, truancy and arrests
OMG! Now they are trying to use lead poisoning for an excuse to being a criminal.
Yeah
Us white devils have purposly been painting ghetto walls with lead paint just so as to kill black babies?
What horse crap
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.