A Civil Action

Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action recounts the true story of Anne Anderson, a Woburn, Massachusetts mother who suspected that childhood leukemia clusters in her neighborhood were caused by industrial chemicals. The book follows attorney Jan Schlichtmann, a personal-injury specialist who initially sees the case as a potential financial windfall, and his small firm’s decision to sue Beatrice Foods and W.R. Grace, the corporations accused of dumping trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene into the city’s groundwater. Harr, a journalist, structures the narrative around the grinding mechanics of pretrial discovery, the strategy of deposition, and the enormous cost of expert witnesses, particularly the hydrogeologist who testifies about groundwater flow. The central legal framework is the toxic tort, and the book’s tension lies in the difficulty of proving causation when scientific evidence is divided and the defendants can afford superior counsel. A pivotal turn involves the judge’s decision to split the trial into separate proceedings for each corporation, which forces Schlichtmann into a risky gamble. The book also details the role of the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup order and the families’ parallel quest for answers. Harr contrasts the plaintiffs’ moral certainty with the defense’s procedural advantages, including the use of settlement offers and the threat of appeals. The story ends not with a triumphant verdict but with a sobering settlement and the near-financial ruin of Schlichtmann’s firm, underscoring the human and economic costs of civil litigation. Widely praised for its meticulous reporting, the book remains a landmark account of environmental law and courtroom strategy.