Remedies In Civil Action

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

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

A class action lawsuit is a kind of act in which a group of people take an action against a wrongdoer, most of the time a corporation. The purpose of commonality provides them strength in their allegations and helps them defending themselves more easily since they all are fighting against one organization. Also it provides with less expenses in filing a case and saves from repetition of filing case. Such lawsuits are normally found against security or insurance frauds or dangerous productions.

#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

Jan Schlichtmann initially didn't want to take the case because he doesn't think that there will be any money in it for him and his firm. Even though he goes and sees how much pain this company has caused to the people in Woburn Wells, he still doesn't care because of the money. Not until he realizes how big the companies are does he take the case.

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.

While initially Travolta’s character sees the case as a chance to increase his firm’s reputation, through the duration of the movie, his involvement reaches a clearly desperate level as we see him bet his firm on the case, and ends up losing it. The tanneries’ lawyer view the victims not as people, trying to avoid the human aspect in the trials. Travolta on the other hand wisely uses this aspect in his argument. The case held one of importance not only due to the health issues but also due to the fact that the tanneries were the source of numerous jobs. This could be used to influence people and whether they would be willing to testify due to the possibility of driving jobs away or facing consequences at

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

Jan Schlichtmann has the biggest character development in the movie. He starts off as a haughty, pompous lawyer ignoring others’ real problems. The only reason he helps the lady with the deceased son is to make himself look better (after being exposed on a live radio show). He didn't know the toll it would take on him later on. If he’d known then, he wouldn't have executed the case to begin with.

Grace Company and their lawyers should not have gone to court with this case for five reasons. The company and the lawyers knew the accusations were true and the truth coming out during court proceedings would have been detrimental to the company and their finances. They also had company employees who were willing to testify against them, but Grace continued with a cover-up. Those willing to testify were loose ends which could unravel their entire case. When the employees begin to ask questions and Cheeseman attempts to play down the issue, settling should have come quickly. If he could not convince Grace’s employees then convincing a jury would be just as fruitless. Also, they could have simply withheld the truth rather than lied if they would have settled, preventing the two counts of felony. Grace, from the start, tied themselves closely to Beatrice Foods and the company should have separated themselves and settled earlier on since Beatrice Foods separated themselves continually from Grace. Those five reasons made settling the safer choice for

In the film, A Civil Action, Jan Schlittman, who is a successful lawyer, teams up with three of his colleagues to take on a case that could be worth millions. Multiple children have died in the small town of Woburn, Massachusetts due to a rare strain of leukemia and it seems too much of a coincidence to be chance. This small group chooses to file a major lawsuit against The John J. Riley Tannery by Beatrice Foods and Cryovac Manufacturing by the W. R. Grace Company. As the movie rolls on, Jan communicates the depths of the nightmares he and the plaintiffs encounter, not overlooking the long drawn out process of getting from point A to point B.[1] In total, Jan Schlittman was offered 45 million dollars as a settlement, but turned this down as

1. Go on the web and find out how to file a civil suit. In your own words explain how the defendant is notified and what action is required by the defendant.

In this essay the reader will be able to identify the legal disputes presented in the Litigation an Alternative Video. The paper will converse the difference between the traditional litigation system and the nontraditional forms of Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ADR) which will include the risks that a company may encounter should they proceed with traditional litigation, when nontraditional ligation is appropriate to practice to avoid those risk. Alternative disputes presented, such as arbitration, mediation and min-trial are compared to determine which form will be more beneficial to the company.

Every decision made in the tribunal was made after finding facts and truth and it was made fairly. There is one lesson that we can learn during the tribunal, soft power. Soft power is doing the diplomacy, negotiation to overcome a problem. The conflicts that happened in the tribunal were solved mostly by the diplomacy and negotiations trough some argues until finally it came up with a decision. The ways to do the diplomacy, negotiation, and argue are also clearly showed in that movie.