The film I chose for this report is Erin Brockovich, which is based on a true story. The film tells the story of a single mother of three children looking for a job. The beginning begins with Erin getting into a car accident and going to see a lawyer, Ed Masry, to try to sue the man who hit her. She lost the case and, out of spite and desperation, pushed Mr. Masry to give her a job in his office. Erin Brockovich's job was to file cases. One day, Mr. Masry asked him to open a real estate file – pro bono. In doing so, she noticed that medical records for an immunotoxicology panel were in the real estate files. Curious, Erin received permission from Mr. Masry to continue her investigation. Erin met Donna and Peter Jensen and learned that they had both been in and out of the hospital with numerous tumors and neurological conditions. She discovered that PG&E was paying her medical bills because of chromium in the water. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay A good portion of this film revolves around Erin Brockovich running around and researching chrome and PG&E's involvement in it. She learned that PG&E was using hexavalent chromium at 0.58 parts per million and that the legal limit is 0.05. PG&E had essentially misled the residents of Hinkley CA by telling them about Chromium 3 and its quality, when they were actually using Chromium 6. Eventually, Erin and Ed Masry are able to get enough information and evidence (more than 500 plaintiffs) to take on PG&E in court. They never had a real trial, but rather binding arbitration. The judge ruled in favor of the Hinkley residents and ordered PG&E to pay them $333 million. Few stages of the trial were depicted in the film because no trial took place. However, a few steps in the civil litigation process have been described. It started with the pre-trial phase, where a meeting takes place before the actual trial. These trials are intended to resolve issues, and the judge decides whether the case moves forward and can go to trial. Then come the informal negotiations. It was here that lawyers from both sides came together to try to resolve the issues at hand. However, in this movie, Erin was the only one speaking. There weren't really any real negotiations. Personally, I don't think this would happen in a true informal negotiation. Throughout these legal steps, PG&E has remained adamant and denied any knowledge of the presence of chromium in the water. No real trial took place. Ed Masry and his associates thought it would be better to resort to binding arbitration because a trial can last for years. Since there was no jury, the final say in the matter rested solely with the judge. Although they never showed the actual arbitration, they did mention that the plaintiffs won $333 million from PG&E. Many of the steps weren't actually there, but you could still get a sense of what happened and their outcome. The film never described the accused's response process, but as I mentioned before, PG&E denied any knowledge of what they were accused of. Pre-trial motions and the discovery stage were also not shown in this film. I think a lot of these scenes were left out because this is a movie after all. This was already over 2 hours long, and more information and steps would almost be overkill. The process of a trial is..