Ethical Issues in Erin Brockovich Essay

Erin Brokovich, based on a true story, is a story about an intriguing single mother named Erin whose actions eventually lead to the biggest lawsuit against any corporation in history. Struggling, the ball starts rolling for Erin when she gets into a car accident. Her lawyer thinks she will win in a court case from her accident, but they lose. In compensation for the loss, Erin is given a job at the law firm and begins to dig into a case against Pacific Gas and Electric when she finds out they are trying to buy a resident of Hinkley, California’s home to cover up their depositing of a danger chemical. After her research, she finds that many people in Hinkley have all had medical issues related to this and that there is acknowledgement from

Erin Brockovich was a poor, jobless, single mother with three children. In the beginning of the movie, her car was hit by a surgeon. When she goes to court, the surgeon’s lawyer accuses her lying and trying to steal money from the wealthy doctor. The lawyer uses Erin’s status as a poor, single, twice-divorced mother in order to make the jury believe that she is lying. Furthermore, the surgeon’s lawyer talks down to her because she is a woman and dresses in tight, skimpy clothing.

1. The Mayor of a large city was given a free membership in an exclusive golf club by people who have received several city contracts. He also accepted gifts from organizations that have not done business with the City but might in the future. The gifts ranged from $200 tickets to professional sports events to designer watches and jewelry.

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.

The movie Erin Brockovich is based on actual events involving a corporate business called Pacific Gas & Electric who knowingly endangering the health of residents and the water supply in the town of Hinkley. Erin is the mother of three children who is out of work. In the midst of her job search she got into an auto accident and was injured. Erin has an ethical and moral responsibility to feed her children so she forces her lawyer Ed Masry to give her a secretarial job after he failed to get her a settlement from the auto accident. Erin has difficulty fitting in at the firm, the other female co-workers do not approve of her attire or her cleavage! The women in the office do not include Erin or help her out when she asks for assistance. Erin stumbles across a case file about real estate which confuses her because it contained medical records. She got curious about the case and asked permission from her boss to work on it. This is the first ethical issue that comes up because she is not a lawyer and should not investigate the case without the proper legal experience.

Currently in the news, there is a major event that pertains to the topic of the psychology of trauma. This event is the investigation of Jerry Sandusky and his alleged conviction of sexual abuse. Jerry Sandusky, an assistant football coach at Penn State University, has been accused of sexually abusing boys in the basement of his home and in the school workout room and locker room. This investigation was triggered by one of the victims who went to the police and since then, more victims have come out as well. This boy stated that the attacks lasted for about four years. Jerry Sandusky met the boys though a foundation he started to help at-risk youths in 1977 called The Second Mile. So far there have been eight

Nurses are faced with ethical issues and dilemmas on a regular basis. Nurses must understand his or her values and morals to be able to deal adequately with the ethical issues he or she is faced with. Some ethical issues nurses are exposed to may be more difficult than others and the ethical decision making process is learned over time.

Many people have always wondered what the word ethics mean. To me ethics is the feeling of right and wrong. Many people have their own way of defining ethics and but this is what ethics mean to me. Ethics to other people might mean following the laws and some may say ethics is determined by what society is believed is right and wrong. For example Edward Snowden, a 30 year old man was born in North Carolina in 1983 (Edward snowden.biography, 2013, para. 1). Edward Snowden was a security guard that worked for the National Security Agency (NSA), after three months Edward Snowden started to collect NSA files and fled to Hong Kong and leaked the files. China started to print out report of the files that Edward Snowden has leaked to China

The Insider is a 1999 movie based on real-life events that happened within an unaired 1994 episode of 60 minutes on CBS. Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, played by Russell Crowe, was the Vice President of Research and Development for the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation and was not satisfied with the way that the third largest tobacco company was going. Wigand was then fired when he began to voice his personal opinion about how he did not agree with how the company was adding various chemicals to make cigarettes even more addictive then they already are. Lowell Bergman, played by Al Pacino, was the producer for 60 Minutes and comes into play when he sees how Wigand has a story to share with the world. Wigand

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.

On their website, they discuss chromium because there is a possibility that it could be in the water. There is a possibility that water is tainted by the chromium because it leaks through the pipes and different discharges that occur within the city. They inform their citizens about this possibility because there can be serious affects on the person if they ingest a lot of chromium such as kidney disorders and cancer. According to the EPA, there can be a max level of 100 parts per billion for Chromium. The village provides their results from a 2013-2014 testing session in which during that time chromium levels went from .21 to .20 parts per billion. This definitely shows the citizens that the town of Orland Park is working to make the quality of water higher by utilizing methods to decrease the chromium within their water

When Garrett Boyte showed up for his new job at the Christ Episcopal Church in St. Joseph, Louisiana he got his first clue that something was wrong. On the refrigerator was a note that said “Don’t Drink the Water.” and his welcome gift was a case of bottled water. When he first turned on the water it came out yellow. And now, twenty months later, nothing much has changed and Boyte never knows when his shower will be yellow or brown. Across the town the water is so brown that people don't wash their clothes in it. People like Elvadus Fields drive forty miles to a laundromat where they are sure the water won’t stain their clothes brown. This isn’t the only case, concerns

Discrete unethical writings and blatant aberrations may both have the intention of swaying the audience opinion in a particular favor, however, I feel that blatant aberrations are much more aggressive in doing so or even have a malicious intention. A discrete unethical writing would more than likely use pathological fallacies in order to appeal to the emotions and subtly persuade the reader, while a blatant aberration would depend heavily on lies to totally distort audience perception. I also think that a discreet unethical writing can become a blatant aberration based on the size of the audience that it plans on reaching. An example of this would be the recent news reports of paid protesters being bused in to protest against Donald Trump.

Later, Ed come to see Erin and told that the UCLA professor has examined the paper and tell that chromium can cause cancer in the Jensen family. Ed apologizes to Erin and rehires her with a raise and benefits. Week later, PG&E representative meets with Ed & Erin and inform that the company has made the offer to buy Jensen home, but denies any responsibility for their medical expenses. Ed & Erin go to Hinkley and Erin interview several other families with serious illness. Nine months later Ed & Eric attended a community picnic in Hickley to add more victims to their growing list of 411 plaintiffs. Although PG&E submits a motion to strike the claim, the judge rules in favor of the residents and reprimands PG&E’s lawyers, who later offer Ed and Erin a twenty-million dollar settlement, which they decline. Ed as engaged with new partner, Kurt Potter, who was an expert in toxic cases. Erin got angry when got to know that Ed is involved with new partners. Kurt gives a cheque to Ed to cover all the expenses. Ed presents a cheque of 5000 Dollar and buys her a new car. Now the case has 634

There have been consistent reports of scandals in corporation because of incidents with employees making unethical decision or partaking in an unethical behavior. Some common examples are the misrepresentation of performance, and theft from one’s organization or employer. According to the US Chamber of Commerce (2012), employees’ stealing from their employers was estimated to be about $40 billion yearly. Values are the motivational construct for what we consider important in our lives (Hannah et al, 2013). It provides a guide for ethical behavior but difference in the values and expectation of a group in an organization may trigger unethical behavior in employees; therefore, this report seeks to explain how work unit influence group member’s unethical behavior.