A Civil Action Film

Jurisdiction played a key role in the outcome of the lawsuit in A Civil Action. The plaintiff’s lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann, filed the original complaint against W. R. Grace and Beatrice Foods in state court. Schlichtmann, a personal injury attorney, spends most of his time there; personal injury is heard much less frequently in federal court. William Cheeseman, the attorney for W. R. Grace, almost immediately removes the case to federal court since W. R. Grace’s headquarters is in New York and the amount in question is clearly over

In the movie “A Civil Action” Jan Schlichtmann takes on the case of his life as he prepares to take down, deep pockets, Beatrice Co. and Grace Foods. At first Schlichtmann does not see any money in the case and tosses it aside. When he goes to tell the families who lost their children that he can not take the case, Anne Anderson tells him about a tannery in the woods behind the neighborhood. After Schlichtmann goes and sees that these tanneries have deep pockets connected to them, he agrees to take on the case. Soon he gets emotionally invested; which was his one rule: to never get attached to a case and sympathize over the victims. In law he can not cloud his judgment with emotions because he will make irrational decisions based on the victims and forget what is best for

Though Jan put off the Woburn case for a long time, he took it thinking that a public interest firm would brunt the cost and workload. As it turned out, he and his associates had to take on the companies, and their prominent attorneys, single handedly. Even the EPA couldn't conclude a connection in the poisoning and refused to "help an attorney collect a settlement fee." As Jan became obsessive with the Woborn case, a reader is able to tag along on a host of legal battles put forth by the opposing counsel. Rarely used legal rules, such as "Rule 11", were put forth to destroy Jan and the case itself. This is further complicated by the trial judge, Judge

#1 A Civil Action is a tragic movie informing viewers about a case that should have more light on it. A Civil ACtion is based on the Woburn Toxic Trial, Anne Anderson et al. v. W.R. Grace & Co. et al. It takes place in 1982, in the town of Woburn, Massachusetts and it about eight families. The major partie in the trial and movie include the plaintiffs who were a group of eight families that lived in a part of town served by the two municipal wells. The defendants who were W.R. Grace & Co., owner of the Cryovac Plant, UniFirst Corporation, owner of Interstate Uniform Services, and Beatrice Foods, Inc., owner of the John Riley Tannery (kennedy). Six people were treated for died from leukemia, a form of blood cancer. The jury deliberated

Our journal for the third week of class was to watch the movie A Civil Action, since we would not be in class. This movie was interesting because Jan Schlichtmann who was originally a greedy personal injury lawyer decides to take on case due to the potentially large settlement involved. Unfortunately, the case eventually bankrupted him and his staff. At the end of the movie, the viewer is able to see that he did not continue the case for the money once he began understand the entire situation. This movie chronicled the progression of Schlichtmann accepting the case to becoming broke. Because the movie carefully showed the underlying issues of water contamination in Woburn, Michigan. This allowed the viewer to understand that there is a fair amount of meetings and negotiations that happen behind the scenes in the legal system. Despite the fact that he was a talented lawyer who could negotiate. It was awfully apparent that in the short term the legal team with the most money and power would win the case, but not in the long run. When Schlichtmann decided to hand the case to the EPA they were able to out power and outspend Beatrice foods, Riley Tannery and chemical company W.R Grace; the companies involved in the water contamination issue.

The firm took the case and went to work. The first hearing ruled that Beatrice Foods wasn’t to be held accountable, just W.R. Grace Company,

In the summer of 1776, the colonies were forever changed with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It made war with the British Empire official, pulling other colonies that had not begun to fight into the battle. The war brought much change for everyone associated with the colonies, leaving no one unaffected. The movie The Patriot, directed by Roland Emmerich, tells the story of one family, the Martins, in South Carolina and their role in the American Revolution and how they were affected throughout it. The film portrays the American Revolution primarily from the bias of the Pro-Revolutionists, illustrating the horrors of living through the war, while giving a more simplistic view of certain aspects of life in the colonies during that time period.

In the movie “The Civil Action” Jan is a lawyer at a law firm which uses Ethical Relativism in most of the movie because they think that the more money they get for their clients, the happier they will become or just because they get a large settlement, it’s going to solve their clients problems. After seeing the a contaminated water and the damage done to the families he was representing, Jan thought he was going to strike gold and win a massive amount of money from the company he was going against. The families didn’t care about the money because they all lost something to the polluted water the factory was giving off, and all they wanted was an apology and and for the company to clean up the place so no more children would die. Progressing

Prior to taking this course I wouldn’t be able to explain the differences or even be able to compare it to the criminal justice system. However, I now have a better understanding of how the criminal justice system works. This movie takes place in the southern state of Alabama and revolves around two teenagers accused of killing a store clerk. Throughout this essay I will explain the legal processes that appeared in the film as well as the processes that did not appear in the film.

The odds of a plaintiff winning in civil court are two to one against. Most people do not even try, they settle. Out of the approximate 780,000 cases filed each year, only 12,000 or 1.5%, ever reach a verdict. These facts are some that are told in the movie A Civil Action. A Civil Action is based on the book by Jonathan Harr and on a true story. This movie, which was filmed in 1998, is about a water contamination case that happened in Massachusetts. The case is known as Anderson v. Cryovac. John Travolta plays the role of the main character Jan Schlichtmann, who is a personal injury attorney. Although typically a water contamination case would not fall into the hands of a personal injury attorney, but in this case, he was just supposed to be handling the case of a woman’s son who died of leukemia. She called him live on a radio talk show and explained that she had called his firm to handle the case, and now they would not return any of her calls. He explains how sorry he was and that he would take care of it as soon as possible.

The case for the plaintiffs was the contamination of water through two wells win Woburn, Massachusetts. From this, the contaminated water had killed many children. The ones who are accused of dumping were Beatrice Foods and E.R. Grace. Jan Schlichtmann, the lawyer who took on this suit went through everything to try to get this case over with so he could get a huge profit from the case. But as he says to him “Our clients pay nothing, We pay everything”[1]. This is true, throughout the movie all of their money goes through this to get this case done. One of the men, Mr. Long, who helped with the contamination of the poison of the wells was severely sorry. He even goes to one of the families just to say,”I’m very sorry about your son.”[1]. The

OJ Simpson was prosecuted for two counts of murder that was a criminal case because the government were prosecuting him. He was then found not guilty of the crime. A second trial wad to be pursued, the civil case. Someone sued OJ for wrongful death lawsuit, he was being held civilly liable, which means he was responsible for the damage done to the other part.

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The movie, A Civil Action, is an interesting case for the families of eight kids who have been sick and died of Leukemia. The companies Beatrice Food and W.R. Grace & Company are the ones responsible for the children diagnosed with leukemia. There were three companies that were taken to court: J. Riley Leather (Tannery) a subsidiary of Beatrice Foods, W.R. Grace & Company. The companies make a yearly gross of $198 million a year, and Beatrice Foods makes $436 million a year. According to the movie, Jan wanted a settlement of $25 million to clean up the environment, $25 million to establish a research foundation, and $1.5 million per family for 30 years, making the total amount of money to $360,000,000. There has been 780,000 cases per year;

Jan Schlitmann was a lawyer in the upper bracket as far as money was concern. He lived in a luxury condo, worn only hand-tailored Dimitri suits and silk Hermes ties, Bally shoes and drove a Porsche. Schlitmann not only was a well to do lawyer, he also was a lawyer that believed in justice, whether he got paid or not, in regards to this case. He spent nine years of his life, lost all of his assets, gave up his personal possessions and personal life to see this case to the end, and justice would be served.