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Summary: A Realistic Tale of a Legal Adventure
Review: Get ready for a twisting, complicated legal thriller with personalities to keep you turning page after page. I read this book in only a few sittings. I found this to be thoughtfully written and definately thought provoking. Believe me, the book is much, much better that the movie.
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Summary: Happens all the time
Review: I worked for a small service company in Woburn years ago that required me to dump bins of waste chemicals in the back lot. When i refused, i was harassed about it.This predated OSHA's Hazard Communications Act and i knew nothing about EPA. Concerned because i had personally known several people who had lost relatives from cancer in Woburn, i filed a complaint with OSHA. The company found out and put me on 2 week probation because they had suddenly noticed problems with my work. Then a high level manager flew up and told me he knew i had filed the complaint with OSHA. In speaking with OSHA, they said they could do nothing because 'politics are involved',commended me on my good citizenship, and that was it. I knew i would be fired in 2 weeks and found a new job right after i was told to leave and the company would pay me for 2 weeks, as a major customer was coming in to see the facility.My supervisor was demoted. The chemicals we had exposure to were chemicals in the semiconductor industry. This sort of thing has happened all too often and though i find it unacceptable, many people are unwilling to do the right thing and take the heat for it. The price to me has been high but i sleep easy knowing i tried to prevent people in the community from becoming exposed to these things,many whom i did not know.
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Summary: you CANNOT 'put it away'
Review: I read this book when it was first released in trade paperback. You don't have to be an attorney to read this book. The author has done a terrific job of writing a book about a very complicated, legal matter. Although filled with legalese, Harr has written this book so that the reader can be interested in the outcome; yet be able to write this book as if it were a novel. Reading this lengthy book kept me awake WELL past 1:00 A.M. Several nights.Since first reading this book, I've read it three times. It's THAT good. I'd recommend this book to anyone who even REMOTELY cares that corporations will do whatever it takes to be 'in-the-black' on the balance sheet. This book is a real eye-opener regarding 'life (reality) in corporate America.' YES, it's written like a novel, and would make a nice XMAS gift. To anyone.
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Summary: A Wonderful Text: John Travolta Impresses Me More Every Day
Review: I must say, I loved this book. But what amazes me the most is the versatility of that John Travolta. First he's a great dancer, next a scientologist. Now, an attorney? How did he even have time to attend Cornell Law School, as the book suggests! Well, now he is certainly a personal hero for trying to achieve justice for all those poor families in Woburn.
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Summary: Civil?
Review: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." With all due respect to William Shakespeare, not all lawyers live down to their reputation. While the practice is very much maligned, every so often a case comes around that reminds the public of how important a lawyer can be. Such is the case with Jonathan Harr's A CIVIL ACTION. Let's be blunt; this is not the feel-good story that most John Grisham novels turn out to be. This is the true story of overly-confident lawyers getting in way over their heads, and losing sight of the reason they took the case. This is a story of truth, but not necessarily a story about justice. Harr follows the case of several families from Woburn, Massachusetts, who bring a civil action against Beatrice and Grace, two corporate powers who may have poisoned their water supply. Harr centres his coverage around Jan Schlichtmann, a young hotshot attorney who takes the case against his better judgment. It sounds like your basic legal thriller, but it's far from basic. Schlichtmann is the ultimate hero; a man driven to despair as he fights a foe he cannot hope to defeat. But what truly is astonishing about Schlichtmann (and his legal crew) is that they carry on to the bitter end, despite losing practically everything. And it IS a bitter end. This is not simply a blow-by-blow discription of the case, although Harr explains the process remarkably clearly. Harr follows Schlichtmann's personal trek, through his remarable highs to his incredible lows. As the firm stuggles to make ends meet (spending over two million dollars as the case continues), we witness Schlichtmann's own private descent, from owning all, to owning nothing. Literally nothing. Harr reports the case dispassionately, neither praising nor judging Schlichtmann over the five year span of the case. Neither does Harr judge the defence of Beatrice and Grace. Harr simply reports, and accomplishes a minor miracle; he keeps the reader's attention up, despite the length and boredom of the trial process itself. From gruelling week-long testimony of witnesses, to the backstage schenanigans of the various characters, Harr keeps up the pace, leaving the reader gripped until the very end. You can read A CIVIL ACTION on many levels; as a primer for the American trial process; as an exploration into the flaws of the legal system; as a description of the limits of human endurance; as a witness to the destruction of a man's sanity; or as a straight legal thriller. What makes A CIVIL ACTION really worth reading is that it is all of the above.
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Summary: A brief history of Massachusetts
Review: Two major program were competing for federal funds when the first signs of an epidemic emerged in Woburn in the 1960s: a) NASA space center, and b) Boston Navy Yard. Living in Woburn were the chairmen of two committees:a) Mayor Gilgun of the NASA for Woburn committee and b) Carl Roessler of the Save Our Shipyard committee. Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill was a staunch supporter of both WR Grace and the Boston Navy Yard. As the push for increased space funds continued, military bases were being scaled back. After JFK was shot, the space program faltered somewhat and the military,specifically the Boston Navy Yard, flourished. Roessler was also the President of Trans-Sonic Corp, a supplier of flow measurement devices and presumably with heavy govt contracts. As local and national stressors pushed the country into a traditional guns vs butter economic model. the push seemed to be more for peace,hence space, than war. And Woburn was in the middle of this monumental battle. NASA never came,and this left a void in fresh jobs to Mass which was then filled by industrial developers who built industrial parks in the polluted areas which later provided space for businesses to come in and gave Woburn one of the lowest if not the lowest property taxes in the state. The whole area was teeming with miltary and space personnel.In addition ,the water pollution could be seen to have effects not just in Woburn but in : Winchester,Burlington, Reading, Stoneham, and perhaps even as far away as Arlington as polluted water meandered its way through a river,underground aquifers, and perhaps even leakage into newly emerging MDC water sewer trunks.Underground aquifers may have funneled polluted waters into spring fed ponds as well. Union strife among public works employees and leather union employees set the stage for scenarios we see now in the year 2000. An estimated 24+ organized crime families operated around the country and Joe Valachi and the Mass. Crime Commission were in full tilt.A small group of citizens in north Woburn led by attorney Michael Gatta filed a $100,000 suit against the city demanding an explanation for funny smelling water. Voyager and Apollo programs were well under way in the area, and wide opportunities were available as infrastructure developments as Route 128- " America's Technology Highway" was being built and the Kennedy height of power brought new opportunities to Mass. In the fight for NASA, the states of New York, New Jersey,Pennsylvania,Connecticut, Michigan all wanted NASA in their states. Woburn had almost become like Cuba in the Cuban missile crisis,both beloved and feared.
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Summary: The Corporate tangle
Review: W.R Grace itself is basically a holding company which at one time had many divisions each very different from each other.But the company itself has been involved in many controversial things. Grace Construction has been embattled over the years in asbestos litigation,which it manufactured while simultaneously working on a chemical tracking database known as Prolab. When divisions of a company are fined or found in violation, the fines levied are charged against that division. Say a company has a $500 million division, then a fine of $1 million is charged against the operating budget of that one division, not from the total operating budget of the parent holding company. This is part of the reason why big multibillion dollar companies fight so vigorously what appear to be relatively small fines with respect to the entire financialhealth of the organization. In a written newspaper article not long ago, there was mention that GE of Pittsfield,Mass had hired former government employees to help them exploit holes in compliance regulations and this may be a part of the reason why Pittsfield,Mass has resulted in another major environmental case involving millions or billions in environmental cleanup costs. Do most major corporations do this across government agency strata? And do companies engage in risky behavior because of the shield of large environmental insurance policies?
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Summary: How could this have happened?
Review: If this book doesn't prompt you to immediately e-mail W.R. Grace Co. (and Beatrice Foods, too, if they had a functioning web site) I will be very surprised.
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Summary: An emotional ride through the American justice sysytem!
Review: If you are in the mood for some emotional turbulence punctuated by riveting and exciting courtroom drama, trial lawyers pushing the legal envelope, families relying on the sanctity of the legal system to afford justice, and just plain good storybook writing, you have met your match! The "legal thriller" of the 90's quoted by many book reviews clearly underestimates the power of Jonathan Harr's work. A great deal of legal terminology is used throughout the book in a way that one would truely have to be interested in the legal process of law, however, it (please don't take offense) takes you through a ride of how the legal system works and how lawyers manipulate the process to reach their desired goal. Nevertheless, the author keeps you interested with the money swinging back and forth between trial lawyers. The author gives you a glimpse of how it feels to have your career and life hanging in the balance of pride. Make no mistake, if you think cayoning in Switzerland, or hiking the Alps gives you the adrenaline rush you need to keep living, "A Civil Action" may collapse one of your lungs! Perhaps you could sue for writer malpractice!
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Summary: Were experimental medical treatments done in this case?
Review: Ken Grant also wrote a book called "The Wanderer" about his experiences as a handicapped orphan before this book came out. Was he and perhaps others enrolled in experimental medical trials in drugs and bone marrow transplants for poor,low risk kids and lived beyond experiment designer's expectations? Did some of the kids involved in the Woburn epidemic receive expensive treatments in return for later mandatory govt service? Were some of these kids kids participating in the welfare progra,?
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