A Civil Action - Case Study Example

Introduction This is a case involving Woburn families whose children either died or being treated of leukemia vs the Grace and Beatrice companies accusing them of contaminating the food. The suit alleged that the foods caused illness in the children; the other cause alleged was cardiac arrhythmias and disorders of the immune and neurological systems. The case grew to include eight families and the community wanted to know what had happed to the Woburn families. The major difficulties experienced by the plaintiffs included spending millions to pay the lawyers for seven years but no one had appeared before the jury as witnesses.

The other difficulty is the misconduct by the defendants’ lawyers; who failed to provide the test results to the jury, this made the determination of the case a difficult. They also had the difficulty that saw them wait for four year before the pre-trial case kicked off. The case had to be brought to court with the help of trial lawyers; Schlichtmann and Mulligan, with Mulligan accusing their partner for a breaching the fee sharing contract, this affected the case’s progress. The last difficult the is that the case was complex and needed a lot of time to precisely make an agreed ruling.

But the judges made a hurried ruling. After a 78 day trial, the court found Grace and Beatrice companies to have contaminated the well, but Judge Jay Skinner threw out the case stating that the witness did not present evidence to when the companies had contaminated the well. Skinner said that “no there present different but challenged issues.” The challenged issues here include the fact that the witness did not come out clearly on the date the accused companies contaminated the wells. Te other issue that qualified to be challenged include the fact that the defendants’ lawyers had misconduct by not providing test results before the court, even if they had them.

The decision by Skinner to decide against the plaintiffs can be said to be inhumane the food and well had caused deaths and more people were being treated.Judge Skinner agreed that the companies contaminated the wells; but the main issue that was to be challenged was not the death and illness caused, as filed by the plaintiffs but the practice of dumping the materials without. Skinner’s answer shows that the cases had to either include the dumping without having the community’s health in mind or restructuring it completely to saw that negligence of the defendants in their actions.

I see this answer as ill motivated, since the Woburn had filed the case after they fall sick or their relatives died. This meant that, the companies had acted against the basic human rights. Hence, my answer is, “the plaintiffs have proofed that the diseases are as a cause of contamination of the well by Grace and Beatrice companies, this means that they have a case to answer”. During the second phase of the case, judge Skinner’s answer of the families crying in court on how the companies had caused the deaths and illness, was an insulting to courts and they did not have a case.

This was a harsh answer that did not consider the humanity virtues. The judge could have just said; the crying shows how the pain that the affected families went through, but the lawyers should collect more evidence that will show clearly that defendant are to wholly blame. In conclusion, the Woburn did not provide a lot of truth in court, but that did not mean that the case had no justified ground. It only needed to conduct more investigations and the defendants had to come out clearly and provide the evidence needed to unlock the truth that was being hid from the court.

For example, after appealing Judge Skinner’s ruling, the judges said that the defendants’ lawyers conducted themselves with misconduct by hiding the test results from the court. This case was highly influenced by the political and economic forces that meant that the plaintiffs had a limited chance of getting any concrete ruling, considering that the companies drove the economy. Referencehttp://www.academia-research.com/filecache/instr/d/e/742304_death_and_justice.pdfhttp://www.academia-research.

com/filecache/instr/t/h/742304_the_untold_stories_-_transcript.pdf