Description
A Civil Action is a non-fiction book by Jonathan Harr about a water contamination case in Woburn, Massachusetts, in the 1980s.
After her child is diagnosed with leukemia, Anne Anderson notices a high prevalence of leukemia, a relatively rare disease, in her city. Eventually she gathers other families and seeks a lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann, to consider their options.
Schlichtmann originally decides not to take the case due to both the lack of evidence and the absence of a clear defendant. Later, after picking up the case, Schlichtmann finds evidence suggesting trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination of the town's water supply by Riley Tannery (a subsidiary of Beatrice Foods), the chemical company W. R. Grace, and another company named Unifirst.
In the course of the lawsuit, Schlichtmann gets other attorneys to assist him. He spends lavishly, as he had in prior lawsuits, but the length of the discovery process and trial stretches all of their assets to the limit.