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 factory worker testified saying that he had witnesses dumping of the factories waste into the water.
The final stages are the actual trial and post-trial, where Jury selection, opening statements, introduction to evidence, cross examinations and closing arguments take place. Jan, the plaintiffs’ attorney began the opening statements favoring his clients and stating that the two big corporations were in the wrong doing of contaminating the water and killing the children who were affected by it. Of course, the attorneys on behalf of the two corporations denied Jan’s arguments saying there was no correlation between the water contamination and the deaths. Jan introduced his evidence of geological studies of the water and soil, and the chemical that is contaminating the water, TCP. After the evidence, the cross examinations began where different witnesses from geologist to factory workers participated. This part did not go in favor for Jan because he asked “Why?” to one of the witnesses which backfired and made the case more difficult to win. Closing arguments were not stated because a deal was made between Jan and W.R. Grace Company, while Beatrice Foods was found not liable. At the end of the movie EPA filed a lawsuit against the two companies for being liable due to negligence.