Civil Action: Jan Schlichtmann

“Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation” By Dan Fagin explores the economics, scientific, political, and personal tragedy of how a chemical giant known as Ciba-Geigy and entrepreneurs failed to properly dispose the industrial waste which eventually contaminated the ground water of a coastal town. The book delves deeply into the history of the dye industry and the lesson learned from the environmental disaster. Fagin takes on complex issues to address the history of industrial processes in both Europe and the United States. He then explores further about the long struggle that parents and public officials took in Toms River, N.J., to scientifically identify the cancer cluster in children and then to determine the best way to handle the discovery.

“War is not a civil action, the more civilized the weaponry the more uncivilized we are.” In the movie A Civil Action there was a lawsuit that involved 8 families and in total 12 children were linked to leukemia. Out of 12 children only 8 of then died. When the lawsuit was going on all the parents wanted to do is to get an apology instead of getting money as their apology from the judge. Their lawyer Jan Schlichtmann did not want to give up for these families, but at the same time he did not know what else to give them besides giving them an apology himself. Only 1.5% of the case wins that 12,000 case out of 78,000 cases. The Woburn case remained as an “Orphan” case. In addition to this, when Eacher and Cheeserman tried to offer money that

Plaintiff claims false arrest and malicious prosecution. Plaintiff states he was arrested for criminal possession of marijuana however no marijuana was recovered. PO Hernandez, PO Bonet, and PO Heredia were members of the anti-crime in PSA 6. Officers observed via Viper camera plaintiff and two other apprehended individuals smoking marijuana in the park behind a housing project. Officers approached plaintiff and two individuals and conducted a stop and frisk. Officers did not recover any contraband or marijuana was recovered. Plaintiff and the two individuals were transported to the precinct where a bag of marijuana was recovered during a search at the precinct. Officers could not determine ownership of the marijuana therefore all three were

In the film, A Civil Action, Trial Procedure was shown throughout the entire movie. There are many steps that need to be completed before a verdict and judgment can be reached. These steps are the pleadings, methods of discovery, pretrial hearings, jury selection, opening statements, introduction of evidence, cross examinations, closing arguments, instructions to the jury, and the verdict and judgment. The case in this movie was actually called Anderson v. Cryovac. The plaintiffs are the Anderson family, the Gamache family, the Kane family, the Robbins family, the Toomey family, and the Zona family. The plaintiffs’ attorneys are Jan Schlichtmann, Joe Mulligan, Anthony Roisman, Charlie Nesson, and Kevin Conway. The two co- defendants are

The civil action in the movie takes notice of the contaminated water supply cycling a small neighborhood in MA. After an unusual amount of kids dying in the small town, a mom of a deceased son asks Jan Schlichtmann, an arrogant lawyer, to help her make a change. Feeling obligated due to the pressure, he starts the case of his career.

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

Jonathan Harr wrote a compelling novel, called A Civil Action, on the actual events of a thrilling court case involving two major corporations and the families who were affected greatly. In Woburn, Massachusetts there were twenty-eight children who contracted acute lymphocytic leukemia between the years of 1964 and 1986. The explanation for the contraction of the disease and even the death of some of the children was discovered in the water; two municipal wells near the town were found to be contaminated with toxic chemicals. Eight families filed suit against W.R. Grace & Co. and Beatrice Foods Inc., accusing them for the contamination of the wells and the death of their children. The families only wanted an apology and the truth but when

In class, we have learned many important topics in the legal, ethical, and regulatory environment of business. However in the classroom setting, we have examined each of these topics individually. Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action allows us to see how the topics learned relate to one another in the context of a real world setting. His book provides an engaging read about the legal practice action while connecting the topics of the relationship between law, business, and ethics; the court system and litigation; alternative dispute resolution; and the nature of the corporation. A Civil Action complements the material learned in class, and it helps to create an overall cohesiveness between the topics learned in class that

The citizen suit provision of the Clean Water Act is an important tool to protect and improve rivers, creeks, streams, and wetlands especially as state agencies may not have the resources to conduct regular water quality monitoring on every water body. Citizen involvement in monitoring and reporting pollution problems is key to watershed protection; hereby helping the government enforce the laws.

There are few things in life that could be worse than loosing you child to such a horrible disease as leukemia. One can only imagine having such a tragedy repeat itself throughout you community time after time. To compound such tragedies, imagine being poisoned yourself and having to fight some of the largest local corporations to prove the truth and get it stopped. This is the community setting for Jonathan Harr's true-to-life legal thriller A Civil Action. The book was an award winner for "Best Seller" in 1995 and was named the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Comes Plaintiff, Constance Wolf F/K/A Constance Wolfgram, by counsel, and for her complaint states as follows:

In Axel Springer Ag v. Germany case, the European Court of Human Rights stated that the prohibition put by the domestic court on the owner of a newspaper ‘Bild’ who wanted to publish materials about the arrest and proof of guilt of a well-known actor violated Article 10 of the ECHR. The court, in this case, had to find a balance between two fundamental human rights - the right to private life against the right to freedom of expression.

The definition of a lawsuit is a civil action brought in court in which a plaintiff demands another person, known as the defendant, pay this person equitable resolve (dictionary.com). In other words they want payment for being wronged in the past. If the case is found to be legitimate and proven justifiable, the defendant pays the plaintiff the awarded compensation. This brings us to the story, The Lawsuit, by Naguib Mahfouz. This tale is about a son being sued by his father’s widow demanding maintenance be paid to her some twenty years after the father’s death. Several of the individuals in this story serve very little purpose.

     The legal system is an essential element in the successful operation of this country. It is a system that is utilized every day, by every type of person, from the average blue-collar worker to the average Wall Street broker. There is a multitude of ways that the legal system is put to use. One such way is the class action lawsuit. A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr, uses the account of a single case, Anne Anderson, et al., v. W.R. Grace & Co., et al, to illustrate the power and importance of class action lawsuits in the civil justice system.

Jansen’s atelier provides many clues about this character. His décor is minimalistic with only a few sofa’s and pictures in the room, whether this minimalism is by choice or by lack of money we are never told. He has no whiskey left to offer the author a drink which would suggest that he does not have much money, although later in the novel we learn that he frequently checks into a hotel for nights at a time which would cost a lot! This shows that once we think we are on track for discovering a bit about jansen and being able to pin him down in our minds, something else will be uncovered which will discredit our theory entirely. In