Ethical Errors in Erin Brokovich

By having knowledge of the chromium in the water supply, PG&E should have been required to let the people know that were affected by it. By not telling the citizens, they were withholding information that affected these people’s lives. Because a risk was created, consequences came, and nothing was done to prevent such injuries that did occur, PG&E should have been considered negligent.

The breakthrough came in the form of a former employee who tells Erin that he while he was working at the plant he was ordered to destroy many of the old documents, however he kept some of them and turned them over. The documents included memos from the PG&E corporate office to the Hinkley plant, establishing that corporate officers has knowledge of the illegal dumping of contaminated water into those unlined pools (tcm web site).

Erin Brockovich is in a car accident that is not her fault and hires attorney Ed Masry to defend her. He gave her the impression that she would be getting a good settlement, but she lost the case. She is a single mom of three, has no money and is unable to find a job. She blames him for losing the case (due to lack of preparation) and forces her way in to a job at his law firm. Because of the way she dresses and acts, nobody takes her seriously and treats her with respect. She is given a real estate pro-bono file to open involving the purchase of Donna Jensen’s home by Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PS&E). As she read through the documentation, she found it confusing that there was medical

The Monster study is speech impediment experiment that was done on the children that lived in the orphanage. This experiment was conducted to find out if stuttering was inherited or did environment play a key factor. Wendell Johnson was the speech pathologist that conducted this study to find the cause and cure for stuttering. This study violated a lot of ethical issues because the children were psychological harm, informed consent was not given and the subjects were deceived. Wendell Johnson had a biased opinion in this study because he was a stutter himself and was desperate for a cure. In this paper, I will discuss the background of this experiment and the violations of ethics that were done in this study.

In the book, Sacrifice Zones, Steve Lerner takes readers through twelve separate stories of communities in the United States that have been unwillingly exposed to high levels of environmental toxicity. In each of these cases, citizens of those communities reacted to and pushed back against being exposed to toxic chemicals, sometimes successfully and sometimes less so. In every case, the people most heavily exposed to these health hazards were minorities and low-income citizens, which, Lerner argues, is why government officials and corporate decision-makers chose knowingly to risk exposing them. This paper will outline Lerner’s book and argue that despite a long history of protests, lawsuits, media attention and nationwide outrage, willing exposure of low-income and minority Americans to toxic chemicals in the pursuit of government and corporate interests is still a major problem today.

As I was looking for stories involving attorneys violating ethics by taking advantage of their clients, I was utterly shocked at how many news stories populated. The one that caught my eye was an attorney out of Salem, Massachusetts.

The contamination began in April 2014 after the source of the town’s water supply was switched from Lake Huron to the Flint river in order to reduce governmental costs. This was done despite the fact that the Flint River had a strong history of pollution. Among this pollution included car parts, a dead body, and high levels of chemicals. (Semules par 5). Once the pipes were switched there were several complaints of the water having a foul smell and metallic taste (Foley par 4). In the beggining the government denied that anything was wrong despite the fact that lab examinations of the water proved otherwise. Two years after the Flint water crisis gained media attention, the Senate passed a bill that would provide Flint residents with water, but this is

There currently is a problem in the US with the government and how they cut corners with the water problem in Flint, Michigan. About two years ago, Michigan’s government decided they would save money by switching the water supply in Flint, Michigan. Before, Flint was getting their water from Lake Huron. Now, they are getting their water from the Flint River, known by it’s filth through the people of Flint. When reporters interviewed long-time residents of Flint they were shocked at the decision. The decision was supposed to be temporary, it wasn’t planned for it to go on for almost two years. Soon after the switch, the people of Flint saw the water didn’t look, smell, or taste right. It was almost as if the water was brown and you could see the dirt in it. Most people thought it was sewage but it turn out to be iron. The Flint River is highly contaminated, 19 times more so than Lake Huron. The state Department of Environmental Quality wasn’t treating the river so, the water was building up iron which caused the water to turn brown. The water was worse than it seemed, half the service line to homes in Flint are made of lead because the water wasn’t treated like it was supposed to be. The lead got into the water and mixed with the iron. The fire stations are helping with providing free bottled water and water filters for the homes. The fire stations also gave out lead testing kits

Residents complain that the waste is making the water unsafe for families and their children, and is killing water life and vegetation downstream. Plant managers state that they are doing nothing wrong and are meeting all legal and regulatory requirements. Are the manufacturer's actions ethical? Discuss the reasoning for your opinion. Describe two steps the manufacturer can take to improve their business ethics? (4 Marks)

The attempt to link the harm to the behavior of the defendant produced its share of successes and failures for the Schlichtmann team. Not only did the plaintiffs have to prove that the corporations contaminated the water, but they also had to show that the contamination caused the leukemia and the other health problems. To do this they enlisted the help and expertise of numerous doctors and specialists. Naturally the defending side recruited their own set of experts. As in any case, each side is going to have an expert who will refute the testimony of the other side’s expert. This is a normal part of arguing a case, but can cause confusion and complication on the part of the jurors.

There are many ethical issues in the movie Erin Brockovich. This movie is about a mother of three who uncovers a water poisoning case by Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) in southern California. Erin has the responsibility to feed and educate her three children and she has a general distrust of people. She begins by forcing her lawyer Ed Masry to give her a secretarial job after he failed to get her a settlement from an auto accident.

They had even presented a seminar to the community and gave out pamphlets advising the residents that chromium three was good for them. They did this to establish a statue of limitations, the community would have one year from the time they first learned of the problem to file suit and if Pacific Gas and Electric could ride out the year with no one suing, they would legally be in the clear forever. The citizens of Hinkley were awarded $333 million. The Jensen's receiving $5 million of it. A total of six hundred thirty-four cases, which was the largest direct-action law suit in the United States history.

A Civil Action is based upon a true story that Jonathan Harr, a former staff writer of New England Monthly describes a case that in the legal system that is fascinating and compelling. The story of a impracticable quest by an idealistic young personal-Injury lawyer, whose aim was to prove that two conglomerates, Beatrice Foods and W.R Grace, allegedly polluted the water in Woburn ,Mass. a Boston suburb, with carcinogens. Jan had hoped that a victory would send a message to the boardrooms to America and felt that the culture of Leukemia in Woburn guaranteed his success. He never realized that he would be comforted with problems in the justice system.

Baby Theresa is a very unique case. Theresa Ann Campo Pearson was an infant born in Florida 1992, with Anencephaly, which is where the two most important parts of the brain are missing, the cerebrum and cerebellum, as well as the top of the skull. Without these parts of the brain she would never have had higher brain functions or consciousness. However, there is still a brain stem connected so all the autonomic functions are still working, such as having a heart beat and breathing. Anencephaly is known as one of the worst congenital disorders, thus these cases are usually detected during pregnancy and aborted. If not aborted, half are stillborn or if born alive, they usually die within a few days. In

Within the Gilbane Gold case, the major problem is the contribution of water pollution by dumping chemicals to speed production for Z CORP. However, there is doubt as to what extent the company violated city regulations. Tom Richards believes that Z-CORP broke regulations repeatedly but Professor Massin believes that it is not solid evidence. Part of the problem is that two different tests are involved: an older and a less sensitive test which does not break regulations but there is also the newer and more sensitive one which does. The newer test was said that the company just broke city regulations, but not by a large amount.