Socialist Action /February 1999
Big Corporations are Big Polluters in 'A Civil Action"
BY JACQUELINE BOYLE
Every day the commuter train I work on passes through a vast stretch
of wasteland in Woburn, a suburb of Boston. I've been told these acres of
gravel dotted with what look like sewer covers are a Superfund cleanup site.
When I recently heard a story on local public radio about a new movie
involving that toxic-waste case in Woburn, I looked forward to learning
how several families whose drinking water was poisoned had fought for recognition
and retribution for their suffering.
The film, "A Civil Action," does reveal some facts about the
case, and exposes a legal system that blatantly protects industries for
whom environmentally sound waste management is an unreasonable burden on
profits.
But the human-interest story of struggle, loss, and disillusionment is
not that of families losing children to leukemia. The central drama is instead
about a small law firm's descent into bankruptcy. And this isn't the price
paid by a spunky, altruistic legal team taking on Big Business and being
trampled along with their small-town clients; it's the cost of poor judgment
more than anything else.
The drinking water in Woburn had tasted foul for many years, and the
town had experienced a high incidence of leukemia and other illnesses, before
two wells were discovered to be contaminated with industrial solvents in
1979.
Later that year several large toxic-waste sites were found, and it was
clear to many residents that local industries were responsible. Eight of
the families whose children had died organized themselves to seek legal
help in finding the perpetrators.
In "A Civil Action" these families claim not to seek any compensation
beyond an apology from the companies whose gross negligence caused widespread
illness and death. Their case thus holds no interest for Jan Schlictmann
(played by John Travolta), the slick, cynical personal-injury lawyer to
whom they appeal.
But when some casual research reveals to him two possible culprits, Beatrice
Foods and W. R. Grace & Co., he sees an opportunity for enormous gain.
For some time, these major corporations had been operating plants in Woburn
that involved the use of solvents.
Schlictmann makes a calculated guess and eventually stakes all the firm's
assets on the chance that the two companies can be proven to have contaminated
the water supply, and be made to pay multimillion-dollar settlements. He
hires a team of engineers to conduct a thorough analysis of the waste sites,
and begins deposing witnesses.
Perhaps it is the testimony of his clients describing their children's
deaths that softens the lawyer's heart; we don't actually witness his transformation.
He may have been moved by the plight of one plant worker who is caught between
the choices of "ratting out" fellow workers he'd seen dumping
waste, and allowing the health problems of his and his neighbors' children
to go unavenged.
These characters, their stories, and the brief, realistic glimpses we
get of their lives are the most affecting part of the movie. And apparently
their testimony carries enough pathos to balance out the formidable weight
behind the two companies' lawyers.
Despite the untold wealth of Grace and Beatrice, the venerability of
their law firms, and the cozy Old Boy relationship between the corporate
attorneys and the judge, the Woburn families' case turns out to be winnable.
The companies seem ready to make a settlement.
But for some reason, perhaps that Schlictmann's judgment is clouded by
sentimentality, he loses his feel for the stakes and gambles of the law
game, and asks for a settlement far beyond what the companies would think
of paying.
It's admirable that he demands so many millions-including funds for research
and $1.5 million per year per family for 30 years-but the request is so
huge as to be counterproductive. The company lawyers are angered, and their
friendly judge skews the proceedings of the trial so the witnesses cannot
testify.
Without that leverage, Schlictmann is defeated. Beatrice Foods was found
not responsible, and to this day has not had to pay any kind of recompense.
W. R. Grace settled for $8 million, which amounted to only $375,000 per
family once the lawyers covered their expenses.
"But they'll clean it up, right?" one of the disappointed fathers
asks upon learning the outcome. No, this was not a condition of the settlement.
Eventually, Schlictmann persuaded the EPA to take up the case, and the
Woburn site was cleaned up with federal funds. The two companies have gone
virtually unpunished for an enormous environmental crime.
Meanwhile, Schlictmann and his partners lose their fortunes and go their
separate ways. He is left a scruffy tenement dweller, pecking away at a
manual typewriter in pursuit of another environmental-damage case. One assumes
this has all been a valuable and ennobling experience for the former shark,
although the script makes surprisingly little dramatic use of that possibility.
All the characters are well developed and wonderfully acted, and yet
this film has a hollow, anticlimactic ending: I now know more than I ever
wanted to know about the wrong characters.
Jonathan Harr, who wrote the book on which "A Civil Action"
is based, missed a great opportunity when he built its plot around the lawyers
rather than their clients. He chose to tell the story of how a flashy young
man lost his designer clothes and condo, and leaves the audience to form
only a shadowy impression of the tragedy wreaked upon eight working-class
families by two profit-hungry corporations.
Hollywood continues its fiddling while Rome burns.
Socialist Action /February 1999 |