Hacker Cinema
A Civil Action
1998 · Film · 115 min
Directed by Steven Zaillian
Jan Schlickmann is a cynical lawyer who goes out to 'get rid of' a case, only to find out it is potentially worth millions. The case becomes his obsession, to the extent that he is willing to give up everything—including his career and his clients' goals—in order to continue the case against all odds.
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11 comments on Hacker News
Also, IIRC, the basis of the true story behind the movie and book A Civil Action - oft recommended for students entering 1L (the book) due to its coverage of tort law.
If memory serves me this is the chemical at the basis of the John Travolta movie A Civil Action, which is based on the true story covered in the excellent book of the same title.
A Civil Action, 1998, is not directly about DuPont, though DuPont did manufacture the same chemical that the film concerns itself with, trichloroethylene. Duvall was nominated for best supporting actor for his role in this, and the film was nominated for best cinematography.
I would argue there are enough companies that have continued creating these cash cow chemicals even after there was sufficient evidence of substantial harm that additional testing would be useless, except to class action lawsuit plaintiffs to prove what the defendants already know.
Movies that cover this topic: Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action, Dark Waters. More recently the talc powder lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson.
Hell, the Bay Area is littered with EPA Superfund Sites where all of the old chipmakers and their suppliers were. Good luck to Chandler, AZ (where the new American chip fans are being built). I hope you learn at least a little something from the SF peninsula’s mistakes of the 1960s-1990s.
A former naval base in my area has been decommissioned for years but still hasn’t cleaned up the firefighting chemical runoff that has seeped into the ground. Sometimes there simply isn’t a healthier substitute for a chemical or there is no legal method to prevent an organization from screwing up the environment (good luck suing the Navy for something they did 50 years ago before the harm was known).
I would agree that better testing and health trials could have identified these health risks before the companies started using these chemicals, but companies don’t have emotions or ethics. They are sociopaths seeking maximum returns and will turn a blind eye (or worse) if their profits are threatened. There is a ton of motivated reasoning within and around companies that produce and use harmful chemicals, especially if they are the only industry in a region.
Exactly! The burden of proof to prove that something is harmful somehow landed on the public, which allowed harmful things to continue to be in use for years (decades!) while things were litigated and all manner of disinformation was pushed out by industry. This should never have been allowed to be the case.
Slightly off topic: The recent movie starring Mark Ruffalo, Dark Water, is excellent. It covers PFAS and one lawyer’s fight to bring it to light. Very similar to the excellent “A Civil Action” starring John Travolta in the 90s or early 2000s (obligatory: the book is far better than the movie).
Whether or not TCE is responsible for these outcomes related to Parkinson's, certainly TCE is a well-known toxin. One famous case related to TCE was Anderson v. Cryovac Inc. which had to do with contaminated groundwater in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1980s related to an statistically unusual increased level of Leukemia in the children there. The case was the basis for the book, A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr, which was also turned into a subsequent movie of the same name, starring John Travolta.
Both the book (and the movie) are actually quite good and worth checking out.
I suggest you consider reading a book called A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr. It's about a lawyer suing a large company over the deaths of children. Hint: He was vastly outspent and crushed. Don't watch the movie, the book is much better.
Erin Brockovich and A Civil Action (about groundwater pollution) are both good examples, yes.
I guess it depends when the article starts its timeline. I was trying to think of movies from the 2010s or so, because I can think of a lot of tech CEO villains in that span but not many non-tech CEO villains. My best guess at why is that action films with corporate villains look better with tech companies. (For instance, Robocop is way older than the article's timeframe, but fits the same villain narrative.)
Fair enough, but then again, you were complaining specifically about _Italian_ olive oil rather than EU values as a whole. Keep in mind that Italy has large regions that were traditionally run by the Mafia and the Camorra:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camorra
Also, keep in mind that - in contrast with the US and as already raised elsewhere - the EU tends to crack down on would-be fraudsters and prosecute when they find issues. Also, it's not unheard of for businesses to tip health inspectors to check out their competitors at the slightest hint of fraud. It might merely be an impression, but the same in the US seems to require alerting consumers and sometimes alarming them before the FDA bothers to wake up (as put on film in e.g. A Civil Action or Erin Brockovich).
No. In context it refers to "filing any ... action." Lawsuits and similar procedures in other legal forums are often called actions. Think the movie called A Civil Action staring John Travolta about a civil lawsuit. The concern here is not how it is triggered (it must be by a lawsuit or something similar) but rather the balance of power it provides if you get into a war with Facebook, since you cannot undo having used their software.
Do you really consider the work corporate lawyers do can be summed up by the plotlines to Hollywood movies like "A Civil Action" and "Erin Brockovich"?
Because that's effectively what you've done in your reply.
Fundamentally, lawyers exist because we no longer (generally) find it acceptable to challenge each other to duels, or send Vinnie and the boys to bust someone's kneecaps when we don't like what they're doing. Irreconcilable disagreements between companies/businesses/individuals all need a means of resolution.