Civil Action
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.
The purpose of class action lawsuits is to give the common man the ability to take on the largest corporate or private entities, who can afford the very best legal services, and have a chance of redressing the wrong done by these entities (Clark, sec. 1). Without class action lawsuits, ordinary citizens acting individually would not have the means to challenge corporate and governmental wrongdoers.
A Civil Action provides an in depth account of the life of one class action suit. It explores the role of the lawyer in litigating situations, focusing on the critical factor of proving causality. It brings to light numerous pitfalls encountered by both the prosecution and defense. In addition to exposing the potential pitfalls that can occur in a class action lawsuit, A Civil Action also touches on the motivation behind these cases. A definite motivation must exist for all persons involved in a class action lawsuit, since the uncertainty, stress, and pitfalls that accompany this form of civil action are tremendous.
A Civil Action did not attempt to sugarcoat the process of trying a case such as the Woburn case. The complication were numerous and often hard to overcome. For the plaintiffs, the biggest hurdle faced was proving causality. Nearly all other obstacles Schlichtmann and his staff encountered were directly related to the attempt to prove causality.
In a civil case, as opposed to a criminal case, winning is determined by the preponderance of evidence. In other words, the majority of the evidence must suggest finding for the plaintiff. Of course, the burden of proof remains on the plaintiffs, but as Professor Nesson explained in the book, the plaintiffs must prove only “that it is ‘more than likely true than not’ – a standard often taken to mean by 51 percent or better” (Harr 23...
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...corporations would be more responsible with toxic waste as a result of the lawsuit” (Harr 400).
Even though the motivating factors behind the lawsuit may have been different, the Woburn families and the lawyers arguing their case shared a common goal, to win. Eventually they realized that what constitutes a win according to the Woburn families may not be considered a win for the case’s lawyers. In any event, the case inevitably came to a close. Although it may not have ended ideally for the plaintiffs, it did was it was designed to do.
Thanks to the American legal system, the class action lawsuit gave the common families of Woburn the ability to take on large, wealthy corporations and have a chance of redressing the wrong done by these corporations. Without the existence of class action lawsuits, these ordinary citizens would have been acting individually would not have had the means to challenge the corporate wrongdoers. That is something to be thankful for, even if they didn’t end up with $25 million.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clark, Al. Class Action Lawsuits. http://www.web-access.net/~aclark/frames45.htm
Harr, Jonathan. A Civil Action. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
Pagan writes a captivating story mingled with the challenges of the Eastern Shore legal system. This book gives a complete explanation backed up by research and similar cases as evidence of the ever-changing legal system. It should be a required reading for a history or law student.
Bhatnagar, Ritu. (2005). Dukes v. Wal-Mart as a Catalyst for Social Activism. Retrieved July 12, 2005, from the University of Phoenix Library EBSCOhost database
The implications in this case was that significant since the cumulative claim of all of the class members may now proceed in a U.S. court rather than in an international arbitration. If Gateway would have won, they would have a significant advantage because the costs of international arbitration would likely exceed the benefits of pursuing the claim against
The movie “A Civil Action” released on January 8, 1999 provides viewers with an extraordinary story of the nightmare that occurred in Woburn Massachusetts in the late 1970’s. The people of this small town at the time had no idea what was going on until there were various cases of Leukemia in small children that ultimately resulted in the early passing of them. The people eventually had gone to find out that the drinking water in this small town was contaminated and there were many women that stepped in to get answers. This movie is a tremendously jaw dropping, eye opening account of a heartbreaking true story incident. There are various elements of negligence in this movie including, duty, legal cause, proximate cause and damages.
Justice is created to investigate the truth and to provide justice to the people. Yet, truth and judicial process do not always go hand on hand. In the book, A Civil Action, the author, Jonathan Harr, portrays the dark side of our justice system. Here, Harr presents a true story of group of families that bring a civil lawsuit against two big corporations, but during the process their truth gets manipulated and proven meaningless by the tactics of judiciary procedures. Published in 1996, this is one of the best works of Harr. It is very engaging, and especially, Harr’s thorough description helps reader from any background understand the judicial proceedings of the case.
Schachner, Robert W., and John F. Phillips. How & When to Sue Your Lawyer: What You Need to Know. Garden City Park, NY: Square One, 2005. Print.
The court was in unanimous agreement of the decision. They rejected the defendant’s appeals for retrial, motion for JNOV (Judgment notwithstanding verdict), rejected their motion for remittur (reduction of punitive damages granted by jury). The rulings were mostly in favor of the plaintiff.
A plaintiff is somebody that brings a case. In this case, it’s Ann Anderson, the Canes family ,Tombies, Sonas, Robins, and A Fieros in the film titled A Civil Action (1). There were 12 leukemia deaths over the past 15 years, 8 of them being children (1). Ann Anderson is just one of the victims that lost her son to leukemia. She open-mindedly wants to know if the water they were drinking had anything to do with it. There were complaints in the neighborhood that the water had a strange taste, consequently, she decides to gather the families that have lost loved ones. Jan Schlichtmann takes on this eight million dollar case. It forces Jan and his team to give up everything they have in order to win the case, including their house mortgages(1).
In the film A Civil Action by John Travolta, several families sued two important companies for the death of their children. The plaintiffs alleged that two companies; Beatrice foods and WR grace, were the source of the deaths due to discarding toxic waste in a river where the town of Woburn gets their water supply. While watching this movie, I watched with astonishment and convinced with the determinations on the plaintiff's behalf to win the case. First, I thought the plaintiff's motive was to win the case for the money, but as the movie transitioned along I perceived that the families only wanted forgiveness from the companies. One of the mothers Mrs. Anderson stated, “Now, I want to be clear. I’m not interested in money, none of us are.
Facts: Timothy Minott, worked for 11 years in the maintenance department at O’Shatner Development Company Ltd. In November 1990, Minott took two days off work without permission and was suspended for two days. When Minott failed to report to work, after the two-day suspension, he was fired. He applied for unemployment insurance and a Board of Referees concluded that the Minott did not qualify for benefits because he was terminated due to his own misconduct. Minott qualified for benefits after three weeks. Minott sued O’Shatner for wrongful dismissal. O’Shatner made a motion to set aside the law suit and argued that the Board of Referees already decided that Minott’s misconduct
...sues for the Twenty-First Century. Ed. John M. Eekelaar and Petar Sarcevic. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993. 135-144.
It is no secret that the American legal system is distinct from other developed Western nations in its practices and laws. This variation, termed “adversarial legalism” by Professor Robert Kagan in his book, Adversarial Legalism, has two salient features: formal legal contestation and litigant activism. In civil and criminal law, jury trials and a specific lawyering culture exemplify these traits. Though adversarial legalism responds well to the American desires of justice and protection from harm while simultaneously respecting the societal fear of a government with too much power, it leads to extremely costly litigation and immense legal uncertainty. To reconcile the American view of justice and the undesirable outcomes of formal contestation and litigant activism, the legal system has gone so far as to reform large parts of the system, including bureaucratic regulations and the plea bargaining process. However, as Kagan states, rather than reduce the costliness or uncertainty of the legal process, these procedural changes have merely lead to an increase in litigation and, therefore, an increase of adversarial legalism in criminal and civil law.
The litigious society of America is everywhere in the news today and throughout the past, a person suing a large company for wrongdoing and getting awarded a large sum of money. A.H. Hermann stated in his article Why is the United States of America so Litigious? For the Business Law Review of 1991 stated (Hermann 1991) “There is no need to start this article by showing that the citizens of the United States are the most litigious race on earth: the number and prosperity of their lawyers, the proliferation of courts which keep busy are notorious. When one inquires why it should be so, the answer usually points strongly to the rugged individualism of the population to the constitution which provides a frim basis for the defense of the rights of the individual, and also to the history to the history in which lawyers, rather than aristocrats, played a leading role.” The American litigious society will have to change in order for the justice system to fulfill its purpose of upholding the rights of the citizens.
Then the monster or whatever it was popped out and jumped off the lift then suddenly the lift started to shake and shake and shake then the string on the left broke down and he kept on saying i'm going to die i'm going to die the lift shook even worse than the other time the other side started to collapse then it started going back together and his eyes were shocked but then he got to the end fell off and was looking around for the monster then he saw a shadow went towards it then suddenly he tripped on air he saw the monster it was about to get him then you heard a siren, er er er and it said people of this town get to safety monsters are on the loose a leak spilled out the science lab in our town and turned all the scientists in too monsters
The resources of our court system are finite and for this a potential plaintiff must satisfy a number of requirements. Before an individual can argue their case before a judge he must show standing. He must show that he has personally had his rights violated, and further that he has sustained some kind of loss. If the victim has a legitimate complaint the matter must be resolved by a judge, or a jury of his peers. Through fact-finding the issues at stake are converted into hard legal questions. Through a decisional process an output, or ruling, is issued. In most cases this settles a dispute. In many others it spells the beginning of years of political and judicial wrangling, which sees laws upheld, struck down and created