the civil action

The Civil Action (1988) is film that based on a true story of an environmental lawsuit, which took place in Woburn, Mass. In this movie, Jan Schlittman, a personal injury lawyer, agrees to represent a group of families whose children died from leukemia after a large corporation carelessly deposed toxic chemicals damaged the water supply for Woburn, Mass. This case becomes Jan’s obsession, even to the extent that he is willing to give up everything. When we look at the case in ethical way, we can find several individuals and entities acting unethically. In this paper, we are going to discuss three unethical activities and entity occurred in the movie, including the ways local tanneries deposed toxic chemicals, and try to cover it after the lawsuit has been filed; the defendant attorney’s behaviors throughout the movie; the judge’s position in the case.

First unethical activity is the ways local tanneries carelessly deposed toxic chemicals. As we know that toxic chemicals is danger in any course, and need to handle and depose in proper way. However, the local tanneries dump directly to the land, which they call “swimming pool”. After long period of time, the soul was loaded with toxic chemicals, and leaked them to the water supply. This is unethical and morally wrong. Moreover, after t lawsuit has been filed, they rented a dump truck and destroyed the evidences to cover what they did.

Second unethical activity is the defendant attorney’s behaviors throughout the movie. In the movie, the defendant attorney tries to give Jan Schlittman an offer to settle the case twice, before the trial and during jury deliberation. These offers clearly show that he know his clients were wrong. Therefore, by taking this client, he is ethically wrong. Also, the movie has shows some scenes about how the defendant attorney teaches in the law school. In his class, he stated that it does not matter if the other party is right or wrong, you should objected. He said, “The most