The Aberjona River was actually well known to have been contaminated since the mid to late 1800s, well into the 1980s with many tanneries and chemical plants. Even in the late 1890's reports from the State Board of Health documented death from cholera and typhoid from drinking water supplies contaminated with wastes from the tanneries. Hard to believe that the town used well water from near that river. The wells were closed, but after children died, and before the lawsuit.
This film is essentially about Massachusetts pre-trial procedure. To my knowledge some American professors have built the whole dispute resolution course on the legal manoeuvrings of this case.
About Causation
The essential substantive problem with this case is causation. The rule for causation is that, a plaintiff cannot succeed unless she shows as a matter of fact that she would not have suffered the loss “but for” the negligent act or acts of the defendant. It's much more difficult than it seems to be because the test is not always about facts and the court is not always doing what it claims to do.
If taking together, plural defendants past the “but for” test and caused the accident, but the plaintiff is unable to show that any one of the possible tortfeasors in fact was the necessary or “but for” cause of her injury, then a plaintiff may succeed by showing that the defendant's conduct materially contributed to risk of the plaintiff's injury. But the concept of material contribution is not illustrated clearly. In this case exists an indivisible liability that causes leukaemia.
About Role Morality
I've wondered for long whether counsel's own moral perspective impact on the professional decision-making. If the answer is yes, how can an individual's operative moral perspective be articulated to another person, especially in the context of a relationship founded on the pursuit of that other person's, which is the client's objectives?
It's part of a counsel's job to consider the options available, research the law and advise the client of the feasibility of their claim and the chance of success. The significance of being a counsel is to commit yourself to facilitate your client, take the client's instructions and to resolve client's disputes with honesty and full competence. But sometimes reflecting on my factum from the perspective of an outsider I sensed subtle moral condemnation for myself. Do I believe my arguments without any shadow of doubt? Did I go in for rhetoric, make conceptual shifts and manipulate the law for the benefit of my client? Am I misrepresenting the facts, misleading the court and acting in contravention of the rules of professional conduct?
We turn the messy facts of human interaction into legal terms and shape the way disputes are understood and portrayed. Disputes are social constructs with various complexity. We have chosen to reduce and translate such constructs into pure legal disputes without any moral consideration.
There's a famous line in this film: "Whoever comes to their senses first, loses." Mr. Facher is an old, smart, vicious and most importantly, an experienced lawyer. His first reaction to the poor families' testimony is "They can never testify", because he knows the narratives would move the jury so deeply that they would be determined to allocate the loss on the big companies.
We seldom consider these questions in law school. Although students may believe that they should achieve something greater than enrolling in a law school to solve other people's legal problems for pay, they are often immersed in semester-long focus on regulatory standards of conduct and heavy academic pressure . Students are also hoping to advance or even incarnate certain ideals of political and social justice, or todevote themselves to a career that will lead to systemic change, but the training mode of amoral legal technician would only cultivate legal professionals without personal-professional integration like productions from an assembly line.
About Damages
In assessing damages to plaintiff who suffers personal injury, the important principle is putting the injured plaintiff in the position he would have been in if he had not sustained the injury.
The features of the common law of damages for personal injury, particularly the calculation framework, is a reflection of the choices we, as a society, have made. The framework mainly includes two main categories: pecuniary loss (mainly includes future health care and loss of earning) and non-pecuniary lose. We have chosen to reduce and translate living plaintiffs into assets with a price tag. The result is we know the price of everyone and the value of no one.
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