Primary-source breakdown
Yellowstone lead case: what the record shows
Aiuppa v. United States, No. 2:25-cv-00121-ABJ (U.S. District Court, District of Wyoming) · built from the filed complaint, the government’s motion to dismiss, the family’s opposition and its exhibits, and the government’s reply, pulled from the federal court record (PACER).
A discussion thread read this case as an “employees can’t sue the government” question, because a news article described the defense that way. The court record says otherwise. Below is what the documents say, with the load-bearing passages highlighted.
In plain termsThe family says the government put them in a falling-apart 1892 house full of lead dust, never told them the lead was there, never ran the legally required tests or handed over the required warnings, and did nothing to fix it. Their two young children were poisoned. Everything below is the machinery underneath that plain story.
What prevention is worth
The government is already spending tens of millions of dollars on this housing. A real lead test before anyone moves in costs a rounding error against that, and against a single lawsuit. The cost model rides along on the right; tap the tab any time to open it. Or open the full version: detectlead.com/prevention-model.
Optional ambient score · plays in your browser, nothing downloads
Inside the complaint
Tap any section to open it. The marker on each title explains what that piece is.
Who is suing iWho the plaintiffs are, and why the ‘an employee can’t sue the government’ idea does not apply here.
The plaintiffs are the two minor children, H.A. and S.A., brought by their parents as “guardians and next friends.” The parents’ own claims are not in the case. So the “a federal worker can’t sue his own employer” idea does not apply: the people suing are children who never worked for anyone.
The real defense: the discretionary function exception iThe legal rule the government is using to try to end the case before the facts are heard.
The government is sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), the law that lets people sue the United States for negligence. Its motion uses one narrow carve-out, the discretionary function exception, which blocks suits over genuine policy “judgment calls.” The government argues that placing the family in that house was such a judgment call.
Why this matters in general: once the government can label a decision a “policy judgment,” the court is not allowed to hear the case at all. It is how a whole category of harmful government decisions ends up out of reach of the people they hurt. But you cannot make a “judgment call” to break a mandatory rule. If a rule left no room to choose, there was no discretion to protect.
The complaint meets it head-on: the conduct “was not discretionary” because it “was controlled by mandatory statutes, regulations, and/or policies that formed binding directives.”
They gave no lead disclosure iThe core wrong: the family received none of the lead warnings federal law requires.
The government gave the family no lead disclosure, no lead-hazard pamphlet, and no pre-lease hazard assessment, and told them the 1892 house was in “good condition.” These duties come from Section 1018 of the federal Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992, and they apply whether or not the owner ever tests.
The mandatory rules that leave no discretion iThe government’s own rulebooks, which left no room for a ‘judgment call.’
The complaint stacks the government’s own rules. National Park Service Reference Manual #36 says parks “must abide” and “must comply,” that staff must inform tenants of lead hazards, and that there is “no discretion on park staff for this obligation.” The internal rule: units known to have lead “will not be occupied by children under the age of six or by pregnant women.” The Department of the Interior handbook required a hazard assessment before any lease, and 24 C.F.R. Part 35 says the government “shall disclose.”
Knowledge: the ‘we didn’t know’ escape fails iProof the government already knew about the lead, so an ignorance defense does not work.
The disclosure form lets an owner who never tests check “no knowledge.” That does nothing here, because the complaint alleges actual knowledge: the government knew its pre-1978 housing, including this unit, had lead-based paint; later testing found extremely high lead dust that had been there a long time; and after the children were poisoned the government moved the family into a second pre-1978 unit, again with no disclosure, also contaminated.
The harm iWhat happened to the two children.
Both children’s blood tests came back positive for lead poisoning. They moved into the unit on Officer’s Row, Mammoth Hot Springs, in October 2018; the house was built in 1892. At move-in one child was under age one and the mother was pregnant with the second.
The exhibits, A through J
Open any one to read the full document. Each opens with a yellow guide to the key passage.
Exhibit A: Deposition excerpts (Rule 30(b)(6)) iSworn testimony from the government’s own designated witness.
Look forHow the government’s own designated witness describes, under oath, its housing rules and lead duties.
Exhibit B: Reference Manual #36: Housing Management iThe Park Service housing manual the family quotes.
Look for“must abide” and “must comply”; staff must inform tenants of lead hazards; and “no discretion on park staff for this obligation.”
Exhibit C: Director’s Order #50B iThe Park Service occupational safety and health order.
Look forThe duty to identify and control recognizable hazards, including lead.
Exhibit D: 2008 Housing Management Handbook iThe Interior Department housing handbook.
Look forThe required hazard assessment before a unit could be leased to a family.
Exhibit E: 24 C.F.R. Part 35 excerpt iThe federal lead-disclosure regulation.
Look forThe government “shall disclose” known lead, provide the EPA pamphlet, and warn before leasing.
Exhibit F: NPS Lead Exposure Control policy iThe Park Service’s internal lead-control policy.
Look forA lead-management and occupant-protection program “will be implemented in each park where lead hazards exist.”
Exhibit G: History of Lead-Based Paint in Yellowstone Housing iThe park’s own written history of lead in its housing.
Look forTop of the page: 290 pre-1978 units and $20 million (plus $14 million more) in lead abatement. The bullets: the park keeps an “inventory of swab testing kits for on-the-spot determination of the presence of lead paint,” states that “swab tests meet requirements,” and bought an XRF lead paint analyzer.
Exhibit H: The signed lease (Housing Assignment Agreement) iThe contract that placed the family in the unit.
Look forThe spec line logs the 1892 unit as “Good/Good condition.” The only lead language (Terms, item 4) is the generic “many homes built before 1978…” boilerplate, not a disclosure of the known lead in this unit.
Exhibit I: Rent records, 2018 to 2020 iThe government’s own condition records, early years.
Look forEvery year the same unit is rated “Good/Good condition” (the phrase the plaintiffs highlighted in yellow in the original).
Exhibit J: Rent records, 2021 onward iThe same records, later years.
Look forThe unit flips to “Fair/Poor condition” (highlighted in the original). The government’s own paperwork tracks the house degrading.
The two sides
The government’s argument to dismiss iWhat the United States is asking the judge to do, and why.
The government asks the court to throw the case out for lack of jurisdiction. Its three moves: (1) placing the family was a discretionary judgment call protected by the Federal Tort Claims Act’s discretionary function exception; (2) no federal rule imposed an affirmative duty to test the housing for lead; and (3) the Act’s misrepresentation exception bars a failure-to-disclose claim. In its words, “none of the alleged directives are in fact mandatory and specific in the manner Plaintiffs allege.”
The family’s answer iHow the plaintiffs say the government’s argument fails.
The family argues there was no discretion to protect, because the government’s own manuals and the federal disclosure rule made the conduct mandatory and specific (“no discretion on park staff”; units known to have lead “will not be occupied” by young children or pregnant women; the government “shall disclose”). The duty to disclose does not depend on testing, and the government already knew. They plead negligence and negligence per se, and brought the government’s own sworn 30(b)(6) testimony and manuals to prove the rules were binding.
The government’s reply iThe government’s last word before the judge decides.
The reply holds the line: it argues the manuals and policies are general guidance rather than the kind of mandatory, specific directive that strips discretion, and presses the discretionary function exception again. No ruling has issued; the motion is fully briefed and with Judge Alan B. Johnson.
Bottom line: this is a mandatory-duty fight, not an immunity-from-employees fight. It turns on whether the housing rules were mandatory and specific, and the government’s own records cut against it: a lease marked “Good/Good condition,” rent files that later flip to “Fair/Poor,” and a park history admitting it stocks lead swab kits and an XRF analyzer. The prevention point is in their own documents: a cheap lead test catches this. A sodium-rhodizonate swab (the chemistry in LeadCheck) or a methylammonium-bromide spray (the chemistry behind Lumetallix and FluoroSpec) would have lit up that lead dust before the children were ever exposed.
All of this was avoidable. If testing for high-concentration lead paint and lead dust were simply standard, run before a family ever moves in, none of it happens.
It is avoidable a second way: a family that knows to ask, and has a test kit in hand, can find it themselves. I can help with that, in my limited capacity, one family at a time.
But the side that can fix this at scale is the government. It is already spending tens of millions of dollars on this housing. A real test before anyone moves in costs a rounding error against that. That is the opportunity sitting right in front of it, and it needs to act on it.
Sources: First Amended Complaint (Doc. 19) and its exhibits; Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum (Docs. 20-21); Plaintiffs’ Opposition and Exhibits H, I, J (Doc. 23); Defendant’s Reply (Doc. 25). Aiuppa et al. v. United States Department of the Interior, No. 2:25-cv-00121-ABJ, U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming. Plaintiffs’ counsel: Jon M. Moyers (Moyers Law P.C.) and Kathryn Kohn Troldahl. Commentary on public court filings, not legal advice.