Ethical Issues in film Erin Brockovich Essay

The problem solving methods that might be helpful to assist Jerry in making an ethical decision would be to establish trust with the patient and become aware of the problem. Then analyze the problems and decide on a plan with the patient. He will then want to make sure he reinforces the commitment to the patient and activate the plan. Last, he will follow through with the task and monitor everything until the situation is taken care of.

The main ethical dilemma encountered occurs because two major companies, Woburn, W.R. Grace and J Riley Leather, were responsible for polluting Woburn’s drinking water through the negligent dumping of carcinogenic solvents. This negligence is further compounded by the fact that the companies blatantly knew that their actions were polluting the local drinking water with trichloroethylene, a labeled carcinogenic. Furthermore, the companies made no attempt to clean or contain the hazardous waste, and the companies systematically hide their conspiracy. Their actions can be justified through the utilitarian ethical theory. Utilitarianism is a normative theory that focuses the moral correctness of an action on the consequence rather than the action itself. Additionally, this view is based on the hedonistic view that humans naturally seek pleasure and avoid pain. In regards to the companies in the film, they dumped toxic waste into the water supply to save time and expenses that would otherwise be utilized to hire a company to clean up the toxins. In their perspective, they avoided the pain of extra expenses and sought the pleasure involved in saving the money for personal

While they acknowledge that they are dumping a chemical into the tap water, they lie to the residents of Hinkley by telling them that it is a different type of chromium, chromium III, that isn’t dangerous. Lying is the simplest and biggest ethical mistake there can be as it is always intentional and causes harm to the other side who believes what is being said. Not only does PG&E lie about the type of chromium being dumped, they also try to cover it up through various methods. First, they have paid the medical expenses of people in the town as a way to show that they are doing their part to help, when really this is a small expense compared with what the ethical dumping of chromium or an alternate form of chemical would consist of. Secondly, they are bribing the people with large amounts of money to buy their homes and the land they are on, which holds the dangerous chromium. Once again this is a cheaper way to hide their issue compared to the cost of having to fix their practice or losing their company. They even try to give out large amounts of money to stop the case when they know that one is being started against them. The people of Hinkley have trouble seeing past this, because of the good that PG&E does for the community overall with jobs and their economy, etc. This is an issue with Utilitarianism ethics. It is hard to see past what is good overall for the most majority of people and realize the negative effects this overall good is having for some people.

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.

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 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.

She not only has to deal with the excruciating back pain from bending over all day, but she also has to deal with problems at home. Erin does not live in Duxbury, the town the oyster farm is located, so she has a hefty commute every day. In this Man vs. Man conflict, her husband, Dave, becomes angry that Erin never has any time for him because she works long hours and comes home exhausted after her full day of laborious work. Erin would try and explain her day to her husband, but she says, “…I tried to download my day to my husband, Dave, who admitted he understood only about a quarter of what I was telling him” (Murray 31). Erin also suffered from internal conflict. She came to a point in her life where she realized it was no longer on the right path. She use to be a food writer, but then changed her career to become the Editor of DailyCandy.com, where she slowly moved away from her passion, and now she feels empty and lost (Murray

Journalists are required to hold up certain ethical and legal responsibilities while on the job. They are not supposed to have conflicts of interest, can not trespass, have to minimize harm, avoid invasion of privacy, etc. While watching, “State of Play” we constantly see Cal McCaffrey, a journalist for the Washington Globe and the main character, break ethical and legal responsibilities that journalists are supposed to hold up. Specifically, he trespasses, has a huge conflict of interest, and invades the privacy of others.

Ellen’s alcoholic father begins to abuse and neglect her , after her mother commits suicide due to depression. Starting from a young age , Ellen suffers mental , physical abuse and neglect from her unstable alcoholic father . A loving father should be caring and protective of his daughter but he neglects and abuses.. In one incident Ellen says “If you push him down you have some time to run before he can get his ugly self up. He might grab and swat but that is all he can do if you are quick” (Gibbons 43). First Ellen is trying to escape her own father , so that she is safe from the monster he has become . She is trying to run away from her unstable abusive dad because he comes after her in order to abuse her physically and mentally. When really

At first the state officials denied any of the testing done, claiming it was a lie. After doing their own investigations they came to the conclusion that the many test done accurate and that something needed to be done. (Ganrin, 2016). This proves that the state officials were hiding the fact that people were being poisoned because they did not want to admit it was their own fault. After reading such articles Mrs. Hurley a temporary student teacher at Bendle High School decided that her class needed to understand the things happening in their community. With this she planned a field trip to bring her students to downtown Flint to investigate the Flint water crisis. (Sanker, 2016). She brought them here because in her English 12 class they were reading the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. The book and Flint have many similarities that include more than the Flint water crisis. Ms. Hurley helped her students connect Flint’s water crisis to many of the horrible things in The Jungle to help them get a better perspective of what was happening. The students learned that just a single cup of Flint water is extremely high and dangerous especially for young children ("Researcher: Flint water 'like Russian roulette'," 2016). This taught the students just one cup Flint's water determines the life or death of the residents of Flint. After the federal government stepped in they commented that. “Federal standards for lead

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.

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

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.

This is the first issue that proves to be unethical. The company lies to the residents in the area about contamination by hexavalent chromium. This is unethical because the company had the specific intention of lying to the residents in order to keep their company running. The company knew that it would suffer if the truth came out about the contamination. Since they lied about the hexavalent chromium, most of the residents suffered from illness due to contaminated water. The company then was involved in another unethical act as they offered to provide initial medical exams, so that they could easily hide the truth that the illnesses came from the contamination. As a result from the many health issues residents received, a great deal of money was spent on doctors visits and care. As the company tried to hide the contamination issues, they ultimately caused the sickness of the surrounding individuals. Pacific Gas &Electric Company is responsible for lying and deceiving, as well as knowingly letting residents suffer from illness. They intentionally risked the well being of the community that surrounds the corporation, so that their business could still