“How can you even begin to compare what you’ve lost to what we’ve lost?”
The plaintiff families in A Civil Action have experienced a loss for which there is no remedy, legal or otherwise: the loss of a child. When true healing is impossible, though, people still need to at least try to find something to diminish their grief. The Woburn families turned to Jan Schlictmann and through him the legal system, seeking an apology, hoping for an explanation of why they underwent their horrible ordeal.
At the start of the fim, Schlictmann speaks the language of money, supposedly the tongue of the civil courts—“a dead child is worth the least of all.” Clearly, this sentiment is in fairly direct opposition to the emotional truth that nothing is more devastating than the loss of one’s child. The court is no place to find emotional healing at the beginning of A Civil Action, and this does not change at the end of the film. While Mrs. Anderson seems to be partly soothed by the EPA’s sanctions and the cleanup plan, neither she nor any of the other plaintiffs have been allowed to tell their story, and no one has come to her door to apologize.
When people are harmed, they want someone to make it right. The legal system has its calculus of reparation: a million for the medical bills, ten million for the pain and suffering. The soul has no interest in playing that numbers game; the soul wants an embrace, an outlet, the truth. But the legal world’s concept of apology, of healing, is a check and a nondisclosure agreement. Indeed, as Facher says to Schlictmann, “[A] courtroom isn’t a place to look for the truth.” During last night’s panel discussion, Judge Chin seemed to disagree with Facher’s sentiment, and opined that by the time a civil case comes before him the plaintiff is, in fact, looking for money. This strikes me as most unfortunate; a settlement agreement will probably never include an apology, but a judge could force one as a sort of injunctive relief following a trial. It would be perhaps a better, more emotionally truthful system, if cases ‘about money’ settled and cases where the story must be told find their way to the courtroom.
Additionally, during the discussion Jack Ford stated that his daughter, currently a medical student, is being taught to apologize for any errors, despite the warnings of malpractice insurers. Perhaps the answer to the problem of runaway medical malpractice premiums and the real path to the ‘tort reform’ for which politicians and commentators bang their drums is simpler than anyone could have thought. Perhaps healing won’t be sought in a courtroom if we are allowed to speak, allowed to tell each other our stories and apologize, allowed to be civil instead of Civil.
While Judge Chin did state that he thought most plaintiffs were in court for the money, he also stated that he thought the court in “A Civil Action” not only failed by reaching an improper legal decision (finding one corporation not guilty), but also failed by not allowing the plaintiffs to have their story told. The bifurcation of the trial was meant to create efficency by having the jury first determine if the wells were contaminated by the defendants before determining what the liability was. But Judge Chin felt that this robbed the plaintiffs of the right to tell their story which apparently he also felt is an important part of their justice.
Perhaps Judge Chin is right that plaintiffs aren’t just in it for the money or just in it to have their stories told, rather plaintiffs are seeking both monetary restitution as well as being able to have their stories told and heard by the public.
The movie “A Civil Action” demonstrates that human pain of losing a child. The pain is so horrible that a person may never be able to be made whole again. It is important to remember that any meaningful remedy would be multifaceted. Because the child can never be brought back to life, the victims (the parents in this movie) are seeking an apology, a clean-up, assurances that the behavior that caused the injury will change, and evidence that Grace and Beatrice Foods have been punished and are suffering from that punishment. The legal system can only provide monetary damages and those damages may not even be sufficient punishment to cause the corporations to suffer. Indeed, the court has worsened the pain of the victims by depriving them of the opportunity to tell their story in court.
However, it is essential to remember that any single remedy will always leave the victims unsatisfied. For instance, even a heart-felt apology did not make Mrs. Anderson whole again. James Gandolfini’s character knocked on Mrs. Anderson’s door and apologized to her and if only for a moment, color and life returned to Mrs. Anderson’s face. The apology arguably fulfilled Mrs. Anderson more than finding out about the monetary settlement. But she was even more satisfied when she had the settlement and Grace and Beatrice were forced to pay for the clean up. As Judge Chin pointed out, the monetary settlement is important, though by itself it is incomplete.
- Alexis Teicher