The Rhode Island Supreme Court yesterday brought an abrupt end to the state’s nine-year campaign to force some of the nation’s major corporations to clean up the lead-based paints that the state believes poisoned tens of thousands of Rhode Island children... The court found there was no public nuisance because even though lead-based paints continue to harm children today, Sherwin Williams Inc., NL Industries and Millennium Holdings LLC [part of Access Industries] did not control their paints after they sold them generations ago... The ruling was...hailed by the American Tort Reform Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce... [also includes case history from filing in 1999 to Rhode Island Supreme Court decision in 2008]