Publisher's
Reading and Discussion Guide to Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action
The questions, discussion topics, and author biography that follow are intended
to enhance your group's reading of Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action. We
hope they will enrich your understanding of this fascinating chronicle of an
epic courtroom battle.
Two of the nation's largest corporations stand accused of causing the deaths
of children. In Woburn, Massachusetts, several young children have been stricken
with leukemia and one of the mothers, suspecting that their drinking water was
polluted with industrial waste, initiates a lawsuit against the offending companies.
It will be an unequal contest: two mighty corporations, commanding the finest
legal representation money can buy, levelled against a few working-class families.
Representing the bereaved parents is an unlikely Don Quixote: Jan Schlichtmann,
a snazzily dressed, Porsche-driving young lawyer who has struck it big on several
million-dollar medical malpractice cases. The flamboyant Schlichtmann is totally
unprepared for what this particular case will demand of him. In the nine years'
battle he comes close to losing everything-- money, career, reputation, and
even his sanity. Allowed full access to the case and to the lives of Schlichtmann
and his staff while they fought it, and given honest and extensive interviews
by the lawyers of the opposing team, Jonathan Harr has been able to give the
reader a riveting insider's look at not only the legal issues and maneuvers
involved in an important lawsuit, but at the human drama and tragedy that can
get lost all too easily among the legal details-- the grief and loss of the
plaintiffs, the anxiety of the lawyers, and the bafflement of the jurors. A
Civil Action reads like a fast-paced legal thriller and brilliantly captures
the high drama of the courtroom.
For discussion
- When he hears about the lawsuit, Jack Riley is outraged. "I was born and
brought up in this town," he says. "That goddamn land is my life, my blood,
because that's where I get my water" [p. 103]. How does this apparently sincere
statement square with Riley's actions? Does your sense of Riley's character
change after his final appearance in court [pp. 480-483]? Is Donna Robbins's
pity for him appropriate, or is it misplaced?
- How do the attitudes and actions of Al Love, Tommy Barbas, Paul Shalline,
and Joe Meola contrast with one another? How important is personal honor to
each of them, in the face of possibly losing their jobs?
- Can you understand Anne Anderson's decision not to go to Toronto with her
husband? Was it really in Jimmy's best interest to stay in Woburn? Might it
not be dangerous for her non-contaminated children to remain in the highly
polluted Woburn area?
- During the jury selection Facher says, "I think it's very difficult for
any woman with small children to decide the case on the evidence rather than
emotion" [p. 282]. Do you agree with him? Do you think he is correct in saying
that a father with young children might not find it so difficult? As Harr
describes it, does the jury selection process, and the role of the various
lawyers within it, seem to be a good system that ensures an impartial jury?
- How important is money in winning a suit? As a general rule, will the party
with the deepest pockets win? Do the results of the Woburn case support that
theory? Is it possible to present a case well and fairly, even from a position
of financial disadvantage?
- When Beatrice tries to settle before the trial, Schlichtmann wonders whether
he is "ethically obliged to inform the families of Jacobs's offer" [p. 290].
Is he so obliged? Do the problems that might ensue from this disclosure justify
Schlichtmann's secrecy on this subject?
- Do you find Schlichtmann's dealings with the eight Woburn families to have
been sufficiently fair and honest? Was the case taken out of the plaintiffs'
hands, and, if so, was such a method essential for an efficient prosecution?
Anne Anderson believed that Schlichtmann was patronizing toward the Woburn
families, kept them from having any control over their own case, and used
them "simply as a vehicle for his own ambition, for his own fame and fortune"
[p. 453]. Do you agree with any of her complaints?
- Judge Skinner believes that the primary motivation in lawsuits over the
death of children is "an overwhelming sense of personal guilt." It is not
so much the money the families are after, he thinks, as "to have it said clearly
that this wasn't their fault" [p. 273]. Is this an accurate description of
the Woburn parents' motivations?
- Is Judge Skinner biased toward the defense, as Schlichtmann believes him
to be? Might there be any truth behind Schlichtmann's suspicions of a conspiracy?
- The questions that Judge Skinner sets for the jurors ask "for answers that
were essentially unknowable.... The judge was, in effect, asking the jurors
to create a fiction that would in the end stand for the truth" [p. 369]. Do
these questions indeed demand too much from a jury of non-experts? Harr suggests
that perhaps the case was one "that the judicial system was not equipped to
handle" [p. 369]. Is this true? How else might it be handled and settled?
- In a trial like the one described in A Civil Action, rhetoric plays
an enormous part in a lawyer's ultimate success or failure. Is this fair?
What about rhetorical tactics that hinder the other side's presentation of
evidence, like Facher's repeated objections? Do all of these courtroom tactics
finally serve to reveal or to obscure the truth?
- Is res judicata-- the principle that a judgment must remain once it has
been decided in court, even in the face of new and conflicting evidence--
a reasonable or an unreasonable principle?
- After their decision, the jurors each "had some misgivings, but on balance
they felt they had done the best they could" [p. 392]. Is that good enough?
If not, what might be done to improve the situation?
- Donna Robbins believes that she and her fellow plaintiffs have succeeded
in teaching corporate America a lesson; Reverend Young, on the other hand,
thinks that the Grace executives and attorneys have reason to celebrate. With
which of these opinions do you agree? Does the final settlement represent
a victory, a loss, or a compromise?
- Schlichtmann says that greed is "our motivating factor" [p. 417], and believes
that he has devoted nine years to the Woburn case out of "pride, greed, ambition"
[p. 491]. Is it in fact primarily greed that drives these lawyers? What other
motivations drove Schlichtmann during the Woburn case? Do you find Schlichtmann
to be self-indulgent or self-abnegating? Selfish or honorable?
- What are your reactions toward Jan Schlichtmann as a lawyer? As a person?
Do you find his emotional reactions to events reasonable, or too extreme?
Was he traumatized by the trial, or does he thrive on anxiety and chaos?
- In the Harvard Law Review, Nesson purports that, as summarized by
Harr, "the judgments of the courts are meant to reinforce social rules and
values and, at the same time, to deter behavior contrary to those rules and
values" [p. 236]. Do the courts in fact achieve this end? Has reading A
Civil Action changed your ideas about the American judiciary system, and,
if so, in what way?
Suggestions for further reading
Stephen J. Adler, The Jury; Truman Capote, In Cold Blood; Christopher
Darden with Jess Walter, In Contempt; Alan M. Dershowitz, The Best Defense;
Charles Dickens, Bleak House; Mary Ann Glendon, A Nation Under Lawyers;
Melissa Fay Greene, The Temple Bombing; John Grisham, The Firm;
Sister Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking; Robert Shapiro, The Search for
Justice; Rodney A. Smolla, Jerry Falwell v. Larry Flynt: The First Amendment
on Trial; Jeffrey Toobin, Opening Arguments: A Young Lawyer's First Case:
United States v. Oliver North; Scott Turow, Presumed Innocent; Abraham
Verghese, My Own Country; Steven Waldman, The Bill.