A Civil Action
Environmental toxins in the city of Woburn, Massachusetts contaminate the area's water supply and become linked to a number of deaths of local children. Cocky Boston attorney Jan Schlichtmann (John Travolta) and his small firm of personal injury lawyers are asked by Woburn resident Anne Anderson (Kathleen Quinlan) to take legal action against those responsible. Jan's partners are Kevin Conway (Tony Shalhoub), James Gordon (William H. Macy), and Bill Crowley (Zeljko Ivanek). Anne appears on air on a radio show that Jan is attending and states that her son died of Leukemia 2 years ago and Jan's firm is handling the case, and yet nobody ever gets back to her. Jan finds that Anne had been in touch with Kevin. Their town has had 12 Leukemia deaths in the last 15 years. Kevin also adds that water sample tests reveal that 2 of the town's wells were found contaminated with a known Carcinogen. The partners decide unanimously that the case will require a lot of financial resources to fight and agree to drop it. Kevin doesn't want to go to the town and refuse the case and so, Jan volunteers to go and drop the case. Jan looks at every case in terms of the value to the plaintiff and to the firm. A dead adult in his 20s is worth less than someone who is middle aged. A dead woman, less than a dead man. A single adult less than one who is married. African American less than white, and poor less than rich. The perfect client is a white working male, 40-year-old, with a family, struck down in its prime. In the parlance of personal injury law, a dead child is worth the least of all. Jan is a master at using the victim's injuries and suffering to sway the jury and extract juicy settlement offers from the defendants. Anne arranges for Jan to meet all the affected families and they all want an apology from whoever is responsible, but they don't know who it is. Jan says that his firm only gets paid if there is an award or a settlement, and hence he can only take cases where there is a defendant with very deep pockets. After originally rejecting a seemingly unprofitable case, Jan finds a major environmental issue involving groundwater contamination that has great legal potential and realizes the local tanneries could be responsible for several deadly cases of Leukemia. Jan decides to go forward against two giant corporations which own the tanneries - Beatrice Foods and W. R. Grace and Company - thinking that the case could possibly earn him millions and boost his firm's reputation. Jerry Facher (Robert Duvall) and William Cheeseman (Bruce Norris) are the lawyer for the defendants. Bringing a class action lawsuit in federal court, Jan represents families who demand an apology and a clean-up of contaminated areas. However, the case develops a life of its own and takes over the lives of Jan and his firm. Jan has to hire a Geologist (Jay Patterson) to prove that the effluents dumped by the tanneries migrated into the underground wells, and then pumped into the homes of the residents. Jan has to hire a full team of geologists and engineers to conduct the tests. The tests have to be conducted on the private property of John Riley (Dan Hedaya). Riley owns the tannery in the area. Jan interviews a lot of staff (including Al Love (James Gandolfini)) at the tanneries, but cannot find direct evidence of harmful chemicals being dumped into the environment. Al says that barrels of TriChloroEthylene or TCE were dumped at the back of the factories. Al also says that many of his family members had a history of debilitating illness which could have originated from the contaminated water. Later, Cheeseman wants Al to tell him where the barrels were dumped, but he refuses as he knows that Cheeseman now wants to eliminate the evidence of the contamination. Riley is also called for deposition, and he says that he never used TCE in his tannery. Soon Jan and his partners find themselves in a position where their professional and financial survival has been staked on the outcome of the case. James tells the partners that everybody in the firm is working on this one case. So, there is no money coming in and millions going out to pay for the tests and to prepare for the trial. They have to borrow money from banker Uncle Pete (Ned Eisenberg) to keep the firm running. Al finally decides to come clean after apologizing to Anne. He gives Jan the exact details of where the barrels of TCE were dumped. The locations are confirmed by another tannery employee Bobby Pasqueriella (Paul Ben-Victor). Jan uncovers that several barrels of TCE were dumped in an artificial lake called the "Swimming pool". As the case develops Jan knows that it is reaching the stage of settlement. Out of 780,000 cases filed each year, only 12,000 (1.5%) go to trial. Jerry reaches out to Jan and says that Jan is going after Grace and wants him to cut Beatrice out of the lawsuit. Jerry offers to cover Jan's expenses, which he refuses angrily. Jerry says that he would only harm Jan and his case against Grace. The lawyers for Beatrice and Grace are not easy to intimidate. Jan stubbornly declines settlement offers, gradually coming to believe that the case is about more than just money. He allows his pride to take over, making outrageous demands (he asks for $25 million cash, $25 million to establish a research foundation and $1.5 million per family per year for 30 years) and deciding that he must win at all costs. Pressures take their toll, with Jan and his partners going deeply into debt. Kevin mortgages every single possession he has to pay for the case, including the deeds to the houses of all 4 partners. The trial starts with Jan and his team presenting all the scientific evidence. Riley claims that he has no clue how his private property became the most polluted piece of real estate in New England. He says that he is a respectable member of the community, and he kept his tannery open and provided jobs for everyone when everybody else moved away. Judge Walter J. Skinner (John Lithgow) makes a key ruling against the plaintiffs. Skinner disallows the victims of Woburn from testifying on stand, as the case hasn't been proven yet that the poisonous chemicals ever reached the wells. Jerry convinced Skinner of the same. Skinner asks 3 questions from the jurors: whether contamination took place, when did contamination reach the wells, when did it start causing diseases in the local population. After a lengthy trial, the case is dismissed in favor of Beatrice (but Grace is convicted of contamination), after Jan turned down an offer of $20 million from Beatrice attorney Jerry Facher during jury deliberations. The plaintiffs are forced to accept a settlement with Grace (Al Eustis (Sydney Pollack) is the MD of Grace, who offer them $8 million) that barely covers the expense involved in trying the case, leaving Jan and his partners broke. The families are deeply disappointed (as they get $375,000 per family after expenses and no apology, and no promise of a clean-up), and Jan's partners dissolve their partnership, effectively breaking up the firm. Jan ends up alone, living in a small apartment and running a small-time law practice. He manages to find the last key witness to the case but lacks resources and courage to appeal the judgment. At a lunch he gets the idea that he should be looking for the people who helped the leather company clean up the mess. He finds them & passes their contact to a rival law firm to pursue the case further. The leather company is forced to settle & goes into bankruptcy. The files are archived while Jan later files for bankruptcy. A postscript reveals that the EPA, building on Jan's work on the case, later brought its own enforcement action against Beatrice and Grace, forcing them to pay millions to clean up the land and the groundwater. It takes Jan several years to settle his debts, and he now practices environmental law in New Jersey.
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