Lead Paint Ruling Victory for Poor By MARIE GENDRON (Boston Herald, April 3, 1991) Poor families who must leave their apartments while lead paint is removed from the units are eligible for immediate room and board payments from their landlords a Boston attorney said yesterday. Chris A. Milne, an attorney with Rainer & Rainer said Suffolk Superior Court judges in three recent lead paint cases ordered landlords to pay for alternative housing and food because tenants could not pay themselves. 'When the landlord deleaded, these families would have been out on the street," Milne said. "This situation is very common in Massachusetts." Boston has the third-worst lead poisoning record in the nation, with the disease striking over 122,000 Boston preschoolers, according to a study by the Environmental Defense Fund. Milne said 70 percent of Boston's housing stock has lead paint levels in excess of legal limits. In the most recent lead-paint ruling Suffolk Superior Court Judge Hiller B. Zobel issued a preliminary injunction March 1 against a Dorchester landlord. Zobel ordered the landlord to furnish a 6-year-old plaintiff, his mother and four brothers and sisters food and lodging while de-leading their apartment. The judge ordered the land-lord to pay $175 a day for lodging plus $100 for food until the apartment is free of lead. Milne said the judge granted the preliminary injunction because his clients would have been temporarily homeless - and thus irreparably harmed - if Zobel waited until after the suit was decided to order payment for the alternative housing costs.