Procedural Steps In A Civil Action

The procedural steps taken in the film “A Civil Action” were not fabricated like in most movies. It started with a complaint sent to Mr. Fatcher. He tries to get the accusations dismissed utilizing rule 11, a civil provision; “No evidential grounds to bring this suit”, Mr. Cheeseman states. The judge disagrees and states that the rule is “old and ambiguous”, and motion is denied. The discovery process begins. Mr. Schlichtmann starts by utilizing the form of discovery called depositions, when he comes across a deponent, named Mr. Lover, who states that the barrels filled with the chemicals were being dumped out back of the factory; this is the first key find for Mr. Schlichtmann. Mr. Fatcher also goes through the process of discover, however

Fatcher will do whatever he can to prevent those families from appearing in trial. Mr. Schlichtmann continues his discovery through depositions and also gets a court order giving him the right to inspect the land that the tannery is on. This is a very expensive process as he must hire many scientists to get the evidence needed to build a persuasive argument. At the tannery one day Fatcher comes to see Mr. Schlichtmann to talk about settling the case, Fatcher offers to cover all of the expenses that the firm has undergone though at the end of the conversation Fatcher throws out a slight threat. The next scene they are meeting for a formal settlement with Mr. Cheeseman and the other associates present, but again the settlement attempt is un successful as the asking settlement number is 320 million dollars. Trial starts, it begins with the opening statements where they state a brief summary of the facts. They proceed to call witnesses to the stand and question them. At this point in the trial we return to Fatcher’s threat of not allowing those families to testify in