Relevance Of Drinking Water In The Film A Civil Action Argument

The film “A Civil Action” from 1998 portrays a legal court case depicting the pollution of drinking water in Woburn, Massachusetts. Men and women were sick and children were dying - some already dead from the water contamination. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for it, and nobody wanted to address it, except for the eight families of the children that suspiciously died of cancer at incredibly young ages over the course of two decades. The water was polluted by something and caused these unfortunate deaths, whether intentionally or not, yet the affected parents simply wanted an apology. The affected parents had a claim for damages and loss of life because the facts showed that there was toxic waste polluting the city drinking water and

The tort action depicted included negligence and strict liability. Under negligence, the company responsible for polluting the drinking water, W.R. Grace, neglected to care for the city’s water and polluted it and the soil under and around it without thought, and even went so far as to hide it. Grace neglected the risks they took by dumping their toxic waste into a nearby river - causation - while probably not even realizing that the river was used for the distribution of drinking water, making them solely responsible for the water contamination. Regardless of Grace’s intent or negligence, the company was liable for the pollution and for the death of the children that resulted. The fact of pure placement and setting was not enough to prove the source of the water pollution, regrettably. Grace’s factory sat right next to a river, which was used to dispose of the toxic waste even while the witnesses of the defendant all claimed, save one or two, that the waste wasn’t dumped at all - strike two on negligence and many strikes for lying while under oath and on stand in the court of

With access to the property, the goal of the plaintiff’s attorney looked promising in his case. There were many goals of the attorneys, Grace, the plaintiff, and the case in general in its efforts to uncover the cause of the death of the children. The purpose of the legal system as portrayed in the film was to hide the corruption of both business organizations and their lawyers. The goal of the prosecutor, after writing the case off, was to uncover the discraces of the defendant - the water contaminators - as well as the corruption of their defense lawyers that tried to further legally cover it up for them. The plaintiff simply wanted to assign the responsibility for the water contamination and to apologize for it, including uncovering the disgrace of the organization that was the defendant. The legal system did address these goals with negotiation and settlement, but to a minimum. Even then, the settlement proposal was rejected, and the case pushed