About this title: Children in Woburn, Massachusetts began getting leukemia in unusually high numbers in the mid-1960s. At about the same time, the water from two local wells began to taste of chemicals. Despite the complaints of local residents, the wells were not permanently closed until 1979. The site was put on the federal Superfund list, but the leukemia cases continued to mount. Five families from the area hired a law firm in 1980, and in 1982 their attorney filed a complaint. This is the story of that lawsuit, in which the defendants were W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods, who owned the facilities which the ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
"Obviously A Civil Action can't be bad, with so many non-fiction prizes under its belt. (We refuse to add a John Travolta film to this reasoning.) But from what I had heard I was disappointed. Yes, it's well-written. Yes, it's a compelling story. But the three parts (I'll call them History, Discovery, and Litigation) are not well matched in interest and storytelling. I was very engrossed by the first part but kept waiting to be truly engaged by the whole thing. Harr let me down in the description of litigation, so badly that I skipped about 45 pages. Perhaps with a better editor..."
"I read this book because I recently read "The Informant", and the blurb at the top of the front cover said something like "The best nonfiction legal thriller since 'A Civil Action'!" or something like that. I really enjoyed The Informant, so I figured I should give this a shot.
This book covers the Woburn Case. In the 1970s, a cluster of people -- largely children -- in a small town in Massachusetts contracted leukemia. The people in the town had long complained about the quality of the tap water, and eventually one of the mothers of a child with leukemia decided to go to a lawyer. After some analysis, he decided to sue a few large companies in the town that he claimed had polluted the town's drinking water with trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent.
The author followed the plaintiffs, and the book portrays the companies as being in the wrong. In reading other material about the case, though, it's not really clear how justified that position is. There is strong evidence that the companies polluted -- I don't really have a lot of sympathy for them -- but it's hard to show that they were the ones that caused a majority of harm in this case. There were other business in the area that were likely (maybe more likely than the defendants) to have polluted the same chemical, maybe in greater amounts, in a way and area that was more likely to have entered the water supply.
In the end, I had two main takeaways from the trial itself. The first is a huge amount of sympathy for the plaintiffs: they were the ones that got leukemia and had other terrible problems, and they ended up with not much at all. The case had some settlements, but most of that went to trial costs and lawyer fees. After the rest was split up, each family really didn't get much. Secondly, every lawyer in this entire book came off terribly. The defendants' lawyers seemed horrible: besides hiding evidence and playing legal games for advantages (rather than just arguing the case on its own merits), they were defending terrible polluters -- not just trying to come to a reasonable outcome, but to avoid any responsibility for having contributed to poisoning a huge number of people. The plaintiffs' lawyers weren't much better, and maybe were worse. They rarely seemed to have the plaintiffs' best interest in mind, instead working on the case as it was most beneficial to them. The plaintiffs' lawyers ignored the case for years while they had other things to work on, and then gambled on the outcome for their own benefit, and finally agreed to a conclusion that avoided the thing that it seemed most of the victims wanted: an admission of guilt, and a real attempt to discover the facts of what happened.
The book is pretty compelling, but it's got some big problems. The largest is that it never really feels impartial. The author followed the plaintiffs' lawyers, purposefully trying to avoid communicating with the defendants and their lawyers, and that shows. Also, the tone of the book seems to be very dramatic, almost to the point of seeming fictional at times.
Overall, this book is a great read for anyone interested in true-life legal battles. There are a lot of problems with the way it's written, so the reader would do well to keep a skeptical mind, but it still provides an interesting insight into the workings of a trial."
"This book is about the suit 7 families with sick children brought against companies suspected of dumping chemicals in the local water system.
I see that my rating is well above average, but I think this is easily a five-star book. I read it in three days, and was captivated by every minute detail about the lengthy trial. As I read it, I alternated between thinking that it would be really cool to be a lawyer and that it sounds like the worst job in the world."
"Good insight on what it's like to be a Boston lawyer and a lawyer in general. It means Princeton sort of life: hard work all the time (w/ adrenaline), big rewards, good reps, good food, nice living, and some losses. Have to be strategic about picking cases to fight for. Otherwise, same old, typical, boring, no rep thing. Like Erin Brocavich but from a lawyer's point of view, and of one who totally loves to spend. Better idea of what it's like to be in a court fighting other lawyers and working with a tough judge.
Realized that the author, Jonathan Harr, was a non-fiction writer who was friends with Tracy Kidder who is also a non-fiction writer who wrote Mountains Beyond Mountains, another awesome book that I totally love too. I'm thinking, instead, to become a non-fiction writer in addition to...what?"
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