Ethical Issues in film Erin Brockovich

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Ethical Issues in film Erin Brockovich

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. Once it was proved that the company had knowingly dumped hexavalent chromium into the ground water, the utility company was found liable for a $330 million dollar verdict.

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. She makes him feel guilty for the way that she is currently living and blames it on him. She figures this would square things away. However, she doesn't exactly fit in at the firm.

Other female co-workers do not approve of her attire and the cleavage that she shows. Women in the office don't include Erin in going out to lunch and even helping her out when she asks for assistance. Once when she asked for assistance, the women refused to help her stating that if she doesn't know the job yet, that is her problem. The women treat her poorly, but I think that they are surprised at the person she really is and what a dedicated hard worker she is.

Erin fights for respect and acceptance from a world, which tends to judge from appearance only. Ed accuses her of extortion when she attempts to get raises out of him every time he approves her doing another job with the PG&E case. She asks for increase in salary and at one-point event benefits. Ed ends up giving it to her maybe because he knows that she is on to something and it could end up being really big. However, sh...

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...y were living in. They instead chose to protect their corporation by creating a plan to purchase these homes and cover up any evidence that would be around. The company lawyers choose to sacrifice the lives of the neighbors to protect the company assets even though PG&E is a 28 billion-dollar company.

It was believed that it would be cheaper for PG&E to dispose of the chemicals illegally since the company officials were more concerned with the profits than about people's lives. The hiding of this critical information had tragic consequences for the people involved. PG&E must have realized that they were guilty since they settled the case for $330 million in private arbitration. All in all, it probably ended up costing PG&E more money than it would have if they had properly lined the water pools and taken care of things the correct way in the beginning.

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