...Throughout the entire “A Civil Action” film, Jan Schlichtmann (John Travolta) and his entire firm struggle to stay afloat during the entire trial process. They continue to count their losses and mope about their dreary lives while the people whom they represent face the agony of never being able to see their loved ones again. Throughout the entire movie Schlichtmann struggles to find what means more to him as a lawyer and as a human being as well. While he agrees to represent eight families whose children died from leukemia after two large corporations leaked toxic chemicals into the water supply of Woburn, Massachusetts, Jan suffers the burden of his firm’s survival, the families justice and his own well-being as well. Jan Schlichtmann presents...
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...Courts of law in America have one major flaw. The pursuit of truth is overshadowed by the pursuit of money. In A Civil Action, Jan Schlichtmann greatest impacts the resolution of the environmental issue by prioritizing justice over money. Towards the beginning of the movie, Schlichtmann is shown in a silent settlement discussion with another lawyer. His client is visibly severely paralyzed. Schlichtmann doesn’t even seem to consider any offer below what he believes to be just and fair to his client, whose life has essentially been ruined, regardless of each “final” amount. He finally settles for $2 million. Schlichtmann could have easily declined and proceeded with the trial to earn more money for himself, but he decided to only take the justified amount for his...
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...A Civil Action Trial Procedure In the movie, A Civil Action, a civil lawsuit takes place between families of the victims of a small town Woburn, Massachusetts against the corporations Beatrice Foods, and W.R. Grace Company. The corporations are being sued by the families for indirectly killing their children by contaminating the water that runs through their town. The attorney that files a lawsuit against the big corporations is Jan Schlichtmann. This movie portrays a great example of a civil trial procedure in the U.S. Court. The first stage of a civil trial procedure are the pleadings, which include the filing of complain, and motions to dismiss. A complaint was made by the families of Woburn, stating that the deaths of their children were the cause of the contamination of their town’s water supply. The complaints were made for the corporations Beatrice Foods, and W.R. Grace Company. Mr. Cheeseman, the attorney on behalf of Grace Company made a motion to dismiss the case but the judge ruled otherwise. The second stage is the pretrial, where discovery of facts and motions for summary judgment take place. In A Civil Action, the discoveries began with depositions of witnesses by the victim’s family members, residents of Woburn, and employees that work for the factories that are being blamed for contaminating the water. Witnesses came up stating that they were experiencing events of abnormal health issues and that it could be correlated with contamination of the water. One...
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...After viewing the 1998 film “A Civil Action” and reading the article by Marc Galanter about “Why the ‘Haves’ Come out Ahead” we see that the framework applied to the American legal system by Galanter in his article at this point in time is held true in the film. What Galanter does is tell us about the two options that sides may be in a legal case. First there are the One-Shotters, which we will refer to as the OSs. These indivduals are often those who are not regulars within the legal system and often are only there once or maybe twice. A fine example of OSs are the husband and wife in a divorce case or the two parents in a custody case. As suggested by the name, these people usually are only in once. When it comes to the results that they expect it is often tangible. Because this is there one and only case, they are not concerned with a reputation in the courts but instead with real, physical, in a way, results. On the flip-side you have the Repeat Players which we will refer to as the RPs. These individuals, again as the name suggests, are those who frequent the courtroom and are often involved the same kinds of cases. These are what one would expect them to be such as the IRS trying people who did not pay their income taxes or a large corporation. Now the goals for a RP are very different than those of an OS. Instead of the tangible goals of the one-shotter, the RPs are out to often establish a reputation and establish relations to shape future decisions made in the courts...
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