Erin Brockovich- Obligations of Utility Companies

Erin Brockovich-Ellis was born on June 22, 1960 in Lawrence, Kansas. One day she got seriously injured in a car accident and hired Masry & Vititoe to represent her. Unfortunately she only received a little amount for her suffering and therefore she desperately tried to find a job to provide for her three children. Even though she did not have any formal law school education she started to work at Masry & Vititoe as a file clerk. There she worked on a real estate case in 1993 and noticed that the family´s medical records were in the real estate file. Erin´s attention was caught and she intensified her research. This way she discovered what big mistake the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric had made. For more than 30 years PG&E had been poisoning the water of the small town Hinkley, California. They were leaking Chromium (VI) , which is very toxic, into the groundwater. The population of Hinkley suffered from this poison without knowing the real reason of their severe illnesses and pain. Thanks to Erin Brockovich, the families who were affected by in example cancer were finally compensated in 1996. Erin Brockovich and Ed Masry won the largest civil class action lawsuit of its kind and thus the utility giant PG&E was forced to pay out the highest toxic tort injury settlement in US history: $333 million, what was fairly divided on about 600 Hinkley residents.

PG&E lost the case because they disregarded the state law, which requires any utility company to inform the fire department about toxic circumstances. Then the fire department would talk to the affected people and find an appropriate solution. The Environmental Protection Agency lists further amendments about water pollution on their webpage. On federal level citizens have the "right to know" what chemicals are located in their communities since 1986 when the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorizations Act was passed.

In Erin Brockovich´s case PG&E did not only ignore their obligation to inform the community about the danger, but they also lied and told them that their company was using a different type of chromium, which is not toxic. That means that all these deaths and illnesses were avoidable. I do not understand how PG&E bosses and workers could live with this lie and the knowledge of how many lives they were destroying. Even though they knew about the suffering families they did not switch the chemical, but told in example the family, which caught Erin´s attention, to visit a doctor to get examined. However this doctor was paid by PG&E to tell the family that their illness had nothing to do with the chromium (VI). The unsuspecting family, like all the others, tried to live on, being thankful that PG&E paid for their doctor´s visit.

If Erin Brockovich had not by coincidence had that car accident, chosen Masry as her lawyer, than started to work for him and come across that real-estate file with the family´s medical records, who knows when PG&E´s environmental law violation would have been discovered and how many more innocent people would have had to suffer.

I personally really like the movie "Erin Brockovich" because even though it is a serious topic the movie is full of amusing scenes. Julia Roberts plays the role of Erin Brockovich outstandingly well and the movie is amazingly close to the reality, what makes it very interesting. The real Erin Brockovich even plays the waitress Julia in the movie.

If you have not seen this great movie yet I definitely recommend it and hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.