A CIVIL ACTION A Civil Action



A Civil Action

Summary

A civil action is a nonfiction work which was done by Jonathan Harr in 1996. The book described the water contamination case in Woburn. This book has won the National Book Critic Award, and it is one of the best seller books. The story showed that evil deeds never overcome the virtuous deeds. A lady named Anne Anderson realized that her child was suffering from the leukemia. She hired a lawyer named Jan Schlishtman for finding out the reason behind that rare disease. In the small town that was in the north of Boston named Massachusetts, two wells were drilled in 1964 and 1967. One of the south west plants was owned by W.R.Grace. The other northeast plant was owned by John J. Riley Tannery which was a subsidiary of Beatrice foods. Between 1972 and 1979, twelve cases of leukemia had been reported. A young lawyer named as Jan Schlishtman from Boston agreed to take the case against those companies. He took the case, not for filling his pockets but for the sake of fighting against the evil actions. He did not know that power of money can buy everything, even justice. (Jensen, 2010) In two phases, the suite was divided. In the first phase, the jury sat for solving the case of both the companies, involved in dumping their chemical wastes into the well. In the second phase, the jury looked whether the containments were killing the patients or causing leukemia. (Jensen, 2010) In 1986, Schlishtman got exhausted in negotiating with Grace and had a settlement in $8 million. Many families started believing that Schlishtman had over billed the expenditures, for that reason he gave concessions to them, neglected his own profits. He later filed for insolvency as he lost his car and other stuffs in fighting against the two giant companies. He fought for eight years, but in those years, he lost every session of the case. Both the giant companies were spending heavy amounts of money for their defense. When he lost his position, reputation, status, and faced extreme financial crisis then, he left for Hawaii. He did not have enough money for that, and he borrowed some money from his friend. After that the environmental protection agency declared in the report, that both the companies had been dumping the toxin material into the well. That had been causing dangerous diseases like leukemia and cancer among people. Both the companies paid the penalty for doing that illegal and unethical act. This story showed that evil deeds never overcome the virtuous deeds. The decision proved that although Schlishtman lost everything just for the sake of justice, but at last he got the victory. (Harr, 1996)

Interesting Points

The most interesting thing in the book was that it created the sense of awareness. The companies usually dump their waste into rivers, wells, and sea but never think about consequences. The book reflected the consequences that by dumping the toxic chemicals into the well ...