Despite an internal company memo in 1900 that read, "any paint is poisonous in proportion to the percentage of lead contained in it," Sherwin-Williams Co. went on to become a leading lead-based paint manufacturer and to promote with other members of the industry the use of paint with large percentages of lead…Sherwin-Williams is now one of five corporations that went on trial in California this week, facing claims they knowingly poisoned generations of children with the neurotoxic heavy metal and continue to do so today, with lead-based paint lingering and deteriorating on the walls of homes…A representative for the companies…suggested that the lawsuit, which rests on the claim that lead paint poses a "public nuisance," carries no "factual or legal merit."