A Book Report on a Civil Action by Jonathan Harr

A Civil Action Term Paper

In Johnathan Harr’s book, A Civil Action, several children became diagnosed with Leukemia in the very small town of Woburn, Massachusetts. When the parents of such children became aware of the amount of other children affected by this disease so close by, they decided something must be done here. A lawsuit was filed and there was much action 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 class.

The Woburn case was filed in 1980. This, after 12 children came down with leukemia within this small community. Everyone pointed to the new wells put in place just miles away, possibly being contaminated. The people of Woburn all agreed that the water had a foul odor, was tinted, and tasted awful. The parents of these children were outraged and searched for answers in any and every way possible, when finally five of the families got together and agreed to allow Joe Mulligan of Reed & Mulligan to represent them. Mulligan offered the families a contingency fee contract as their form of payment. They agreed to allow Mulligan to one-third of the final winnings in the case. Even with this potential large sum of money guaranteed, the case laid dormant for years. It wasn’t until right before the statute of limitations ran out, a new lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann, came into the law firm and picked it right back up. After a large mess of things, Schlichtmann decided to hand over the case 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 eventually filed a complaint against the companies W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods for the illegal and negligent dumping of waste, which resulted in the contamination of Wells G and H in Woburn, Massachusetts, just days before the statue was to expire.

The most prominent lawyer in this case would, unarguably, be Jan Schlichtmann. The book almost studies his entire life in a way it does not do for anyone else. In the second chapter, entitled, “The Lawyer,” there is much about Schlichtmann’s history and strong points. His story is very relatable, as a student considering furthering her education through law school. In the beginning, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the legal field, when suddenly, he decided that to be the only field he wanted. In fact, on page 57, Harr stated that Schlichtmann had decided, “The law was perhaps the highest calling a man could aspire to.” This, after he realized that lawyering “wasn’t just wills, divorces, and sordid criminal matters.” (pg. 57). These words, as well as the remainder of this chapter, was a reminder of our class discussions on Chapter 3 of Porto’s book, May It Please The Court. In fact, one of the essay questions on our Test 1 was, “What do lawyers do?” It is a very common theory that lawyers only stand in court and argue down witnesses. It is also a common theory that lawyers only handle their cases when in person, and have an assistant do the remainder of the work. This page alone proves otherwise. Schlichtmann is outraged by the discrimination expressed towards these welfare mothers, and he made it his duty to fight that battle, himself. It was very interesting to read that he had very little interest in torts in law school, yet ended up being the key asset to the Woburn case. We see Schlichtmann do many different types of law, even at many firms, in this book. This just proves how much diversity there really is in the legal profession.

There was much discussed in chapter 2 that caught the eye about this attorney. Schlichtmann, himself, even stated something that was extremely relevant to our class: “This is a political battle now, not a legal one. We’re not ready for the legal battle yet” (pg. 69). At this time, he was talking to Anne Anderson, a mother of one of the children who eventually died of leukemia in Woburn, about the hardships in place for moving forward with this lawsuit. Specifically, he was speaking of the process of finding what exactly was contaminating these wells which are ultimately making these children sick. This sounds like something that could be written by Brian Porto, himself. In Chapter 1 of May It Please The Court, Porto goes into great detail on the debate over law vs. politics. Some say they are completely different and unrelated, and some believe they are one and the same. As Porto stated, though, and Schlichtmann proved, “law and politics … are not identical twins, but they are close relatices and they both influence courts, sometimes even in the same case” (pg. 16). Porto refers to politics as “who gets what, when and how” (pg. 3). That perfectly describes what is going on here. Schlichtmann is suggesting to this mother that she simply has to be patient and wait for the political decision to be made on when and how these specific (what) toxic waste dumps will be investigated. The legal issue would be the Woburn public’s opinion of this issue and that something be done about it, but ultimately it is up to politics to decide when and where. This is an unfortunate situation for these families brought upon by our American government system. You would think with all of this public outrage and children dying that something more would be done here, and more quickly.

Settlements outside of court were talked about a lot amongst our class. We often stated that many lawyers choose to settle outside of court, and use court as sort of a “last resort” option. We see two instances in the book of attempted settlements. First, William Cheeseman, attorney for W. R. Grace files a motion for a summary judgement in the case due to am alleged lack of evidence on the plaintiffs’ parts. This motion was denied by the presiding judge, Honorable Judge Walter Skinner. Right before trial was to begin, there were two different attempts to settle outside of court for this issue, but neither was entertained. The case was going to trial. Before trial, though, the defense came upon another company with a plant near the wells. Schlichtmann filed charges with that company, Unifest, as well. That case was settled outside of court for $1,050,000. That money was agreed to be used in the progression of the larger case, and so it continued. These issues were handled in a legal manner, obviously, because it’s a lawsuit, but there were also many political factors involved as well in the obtaining of said settlement. During the settlement with Unifest, the company did not, originally, want to offer that much money. That price kept going up. Also, when finally settled on an amount, they agreed to have such amount be paid in payments, much like politics would define as “who gets what, when, and how.”

In class, the discovery process was also heavily discussed. There are many similarities to our in the class discussions and this book. In class, we focused more on interrogatories, the part of the discovery process where a list of questions sent from lawyer to lawyer, whereas in the book, specifically in Chapter 6, entitled “Discovery,” deposition seemed to be the primary source of questioning. This process would have it’s pros and cons. Having someone come in for questioning would take a lot more time out of everyone’s day than coming up with a list of questions to be sent out. Also, there is obviously much more emotion in this case when the lawyers see the parents crying over their deceased children and others trying to remember what occurred 20 years before. When sending questions through the mail, that issue is avoided completely. Finally, sitting across from a group of lawyers can be very intimidating for these witnesses. There are good reasons for having it face-to-face, too, though. Follow-up questions can always be asked in person, whereas they cannot on a sheet of paper. Also, the participants have less time to think of a witty answer when asked the tough questions when they are sitting across the tables from the lawyers. Whereas this is still a very useful way to progress along the discovery process, it was noticed that we didn’t focus on depositions in class as the members of the Woburn case did in the book.

The closing arguments took place on the 77th day of trial. That’s absolutely unheard-of. Everything else about the trial, though, was all familiar. All of the cross examining and methods the lawyers used to get information out of the witnesses was a big thing we talked about in class when it came to “lawyering.” The verdict took me by surprise. Schlictmann had been so headstrong about getting so much money out of these companies, yet he settled for so little. When you have no other option, though, I suppose that makes sense. There were many motions after the trial for a new trial based on new evidence, but the judge denied those motions. Porto, as well as in class discussions, focused heavily on motions; who can file what, what each mean, etc.

Before reading this book, my sister in law, who is a practicing lawyer in Mississippi, advised me that A Civil Action would be a great read, but would make me not want to become a lawyer. This intrigued me even more to read. After reading, though, I’d have to disagree. I love all of the chaos and the pressure of going into something blind, prepared, but completely blind as to what the outcome shall be. After reading this book, I believe that lawyering,in and of itself is politics. It is ultimately up to who is the best lawyer in the courtroom to argue for who gets what, when, and how.

Works Cited

1. Harr, J. (1996). A Civil Action. Vintage.
2. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. (n.d.). Woburn Wells G & H Superfund Site. https://www.mass.gov/info-details/woburn-wells-g-h-superfund-site
3. May, C. (2010). The American Legal System: Perspectives, Politics, Processes, and Policies. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
4. Porto, B. (2010). May It Please The Court: Judicial Processes and Politics in America. CQ Press.
5. Rosenberg, B. (2017). The Trial of Jan Schlichtmann: Reflections on the Woburn Toxic Trial. Law and Contemporary Problems, 80(3), 1-10.
6. Rumore, S. (2003). Rethinking politics and the legal profession: A civil action as pedagogical tool. PS: Political Science and Politics, 36(4), 735-739.
7. Simon, J. (2017). Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear. Oxford University Press.
8. The National Law Review. (2018). Environmental Law at 40 Years: How the Environmental Movement Became a Major Player in American Politics. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/environmental-law-40-years-how-environmental-movement-became-major-player-american
9. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Superfund Program. https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-program
10. Wilson, R. K. (2005). Lawyering as Religious Ritual: Lessons from A Civil Action. Journal of Legal Education, 55(4), 502-525.