A Civil Action Report Book In Johnathan Harr's book, A Civil Action, several children were diagnosed with leukemia in the small town of Woburn, Massachusetts. When the parents of these children noticed the number of other children suffering from this disease in such close proximity, they decided that something had to be done here. A lawsuit was filed and there were many actions along the way. This book was a great read and there were many familiar things in this book that could be related to our judicial process course. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The Woburn case was dismissed in 1980, after 12 children became ill with leukemia within this small community. They all pointed out that new wells installed a few kilometers away could be contaminated. Everyone in Woburn agreed that the water smelled bad, was colored, and tasted terrible. The parents of these children were outraged and sought answers in every way possible, when finally five families came together and agreed to allow Joe Mulligan of Reed & Mulligan to represent them. Mulligan offered the families a contingency fee contract as a form of payment. They agreed to give Mulligan one-third of the final win in the case. Even with this potentially large sum of money secured, the case remained dormant for years. Only shortly before the statute of limitations expired did a new lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann, join the law firm and take it over. After a major mess, Schlichtmann decided to turn the case over to Anthony Roisman in Washington, D.C., and agreed to remain local counsel for the families and, in turn, split the winnings. Together, Roisman and Schlictman ultimately filed a complaint against the companies W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods for the illegal and negligent dumping of waste, which resulted in contamination of wells G and H in Woburn, Massachusetts, just days before the statue's expiration . The most important lawyer in this case would be, without a doubt, Jan Schlichtmann. The book studies almost his entire life in a way that no one else does. In the second chapter, entitled “The Lawyer”, a lot is said about Schlichtmann's history and strengths. Her story is very relatable, as a student considering further education through law school. At first he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the legal field, when he suddenly decided that this would be the only field he wanted. Indeed, on page 57, Harr stated that Schlichtmann had decided, "The law was perhaps the highest calling to which a man could aspire." This, after realizing that the lawyer "is not all about wills, divorces and sordid criminal matters". (p. 57). These words, as well as the rest of this chapter, reminded us of our class discussions of chapter 3 of Porto's book, May It Please The Court. In fact, one of the questions in our Test 1 was, “What do lawyers do?” It's a very common theory that lawyers just sit in court and argue witnesses. It is also a common theory that lawyers only handle their cases in person and have an assistant do the rest of the work. This page alone proves the opposite. Schlichtmann is outraged by the discrimination expressed against these welfare mothers and has taken it upon himself to fight that battle himself. It was very interesting to read that he had very little interest in torts in law school, yet he ended up being the key resource in the caseWoburn. In this book we see Schlichtmann doing many different types of law, including in many law firms. This just goes to show how much diversity there really is in the legal profession. In Chapter 2, many aspects that drew attention to this lawyer were discussed. Schlichtmann himself even said something extremely relevant to our class: “This is a political battle now, not a legal one. We are not ready for the legal battle yet” (p. 69). At the time, he was talking to Anne Anderson, mother of one of the children who eventually died of leukemia in Woburn, about the ongoing challenges of moving forward with this cause. Specifically, he was talking about the process of finding what exactly was contaminating these wells that is ultimately making these children sick. It sounds like something that could be written by Brian Porto himself. In chapter 1 of May It Please The Court, Porto goes into detail about the debate between law and politics. Some say they are completely different and unrelated, others believe they are the same thing. As Porto stated, however, and as Schlichtmann demonstrated, “law and politics… are not identical twins, but they are close relatives and both influence the courts, sometimes even in the same case” (p. 16). Porto refers to politics as “who gets what, when and how” (p. 3). That perfectly describes what's going on here. Schlichtmann suggests that this mother be patient and wait for the political decision to be made about when and how to investigate these specific (what) toxic waste dumps. The legal question would be the opinion of the Woburn public on this issue and for something to be done about it, but ultimately it is up to politics to decide when and where. This is an unfortunate situation for these families caused by our American government system. With all this public outrage and the deaths of children you might think something more should be done here, and more quickly. There was a lot of talk in our class about out-of-court settlements. We have often said that many lawyers choose to resolve their disputes outside of court and use the court as a sort of “last resort” option. Let's see two examples in the book of attempted agreements. First, William Cheeseman, attorney for W.R. Grace, files a motion for summary judgment in the case due to the plaintiffs' alleged lack of evidence. This motion was denied by the presiding judge, the Honorable Judge Walter Skinner. Right before the trial began, there were two different attempts to resolve the matter out of court, but neither was acted upon. The case would go to trial. Before the trial, however, the defense came across another company with a plant near the wells. Schlichtmann also filed a complaint with the Unifest company. That case was settled out of court for $1,050,000. It was agreed that that money would be used in the progression of the larger case, and so it continued. These matters were handled legally, obviously, because it's a lawsuit, but there were also a lot of political factors involved in getting that settlement. During the deal with Unifest, the company initially didn't want to offer that much money. That price kept going up. Furthermore, once an amount was established, they agreed to that amount being paid in payments, just as the policy would define “who gets what, when, and how.” In class, the discovery process was also discussed extensively. There are many similarities between our class discussions and this book. In class we focused more on interrogations, the part of the discovery process where a list, 55(4), 502-525.