Transcript MAIN CHARACTERS in Erin Brockovich

MAIN CHARACTERS in
Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich
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Main character in movie, leading role
Smart with a very powerful voice, always says
what’s on her mind
Willing to do whatever it takes to support
her family – 3 children:
Matthew – 8
Katie – 6
Beth – 10 months
Married & divorced twice
Beginning of the movie she is on her last 16 dollars
her bank account; later becomes a millionaire after
she wins the case
Ed Masry
• Boss of Erin; owns his own law firm
• Firm turns from small town, independent
law firm to big time corporate law firm at
the end of the movie
• First hesitant to hire Erin; she persuaded him
to do so
• First impression of Erin was “a dumb hick”
who “looks like someone who has a lot of
fun”
• Smart man, but is unwilling to speak up, so
Erin does
• Rewards Erin greatly at the end of the movie
with a large sum of money
George
• Erin’s love interest throughout the
movie
• Watches her kids while she is at
work
• In a motorcycle crew
• Nice and caring man; treats kids and
Erin with respect
• Leaves Erin in the middle of the
movie because she works too much
and he doesn’t have time for himself
• Gets back together with Erin at the
end of the movie
Charles Embry
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Meets Erin in the beginning of the
movie – seen as weird, creepy man
Erin meets him again at a bar, but this time
she thinks he is hitting on her
Ends up being the man that cracks the case
He tells her that he worked at the Hinkley
plant cleaning the cooling towers and he
was told to destroy certain documents
Turns out he kept the documents that
proved the main PG&E plant in San
Francisco knew what was going on in
Hinkley and he turned them over to Erin
Cousin passed away from kidney tumors
caused by the chromium poisoning
Donna Jensen
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The case that started Erin’s
investigation
Erin wanted to find out why PG&E
needed to know their medical records
and what it had to do with selling a
house
Has cancer caused by chromium
poisoning (this wasn’t found out until
later in the movie)
Has a husband and two kids
She is the first person Erin tells about
winning the case
Receives $3 million in compensation
Says to Erin after being diagnosed
with cancer again – “You gotta
promise me we are going to get
them.”
Kurt Potter
• Joins with Masry and Brockovich
• Provides Masry firm with money to
fund the case
• Receives compensation if the court case
is won (and it is)
• Case would not have been won without
his interference
• At first, doesn’t seem like a nice man,
but later we learn to trust him
• Does not think Erin is going to put
everything together until she uncovers
the information given to her by Embry
Factual Information About
Hinkley vs. PG&E
• The court case was actually called “Anderson vs. Pacific Gas
& Electric.”
• It took place in Hinkley, California. Hinkley is located in the
Mojave Desert, near the town of Barstow, California. It is
not far off the famous Route 66, about 150 miles from Las
Vegas.
• On December 7, 1987 officials from the company advised
the State of California they had detected levels of hexavalent
chromium (chrome 6), a highly toxic and fatal cancercausing chemical in a groundwater monitoring well north of
the compressor station's waste water ponds. The levels were
ten times greater than the maximum amount allowed by law.
• After PG&E reported the pollution to the government,
company officials started a program to buy every piece of
property in the community thought to be affected by the
pollution. In what was said to have been a response to
vandalism, PG&E had 75% of those houses and buildings
destroyed.
• PG&E told the citizens of Hinkley that they had been
using chromium in their drinking water making it seem as
if it had actually been beneficial, but failed to mention the
dangerous type of chromium it had dumped in the
environment, also making it seem like the detection was a
new development.
• Based on the evidence, high levels of chrome 6
contamination found in 1987 could not have been a surprise
to the company, notwithstanding whether senior
management knew. People and animals who lived in the area
had been breathing, ingesting, and absorbing dangerous
toxins into their bodies for decades. Evidence was later
found proving that the main branch of PG&E in San
Francisco did know what was going on in Hickley.
• PG&E didn't line the ponds until 1972. The company sent
750,000 additional gallons of chrome 6 wastewater every
month to the ponds for another six years.
• Once the toxic material was in the unlined ponds, there
was nothing to stop it from migrating to the wells that
supplied nearby homes, farms and ranches.
• Erin Brockovich and her boss made the decision to
represent these people. When 77 initial plaintiffs filed
their lawsuit against PG&E in 1993, it was the direct
result of a monstrous effort by this dedicated legal team.
• As lawyers for both sides fought, the case grew.
Eventually 648 plaintiffs joined the lawsuit.
• by September 19, 1994 the parties reached an agreement
to arbitrate/mediate. The agreement pulled the case out of
the trial court - where a jury would have decided it - and
placed it into the hands of Justice John K. Trotter and
Judge Daniel H. Weinstein, two outstanding retired jurists
An End to Anderson vs. PG&E
• At the end of the two year long arbitration
trial, the plaintiffs reached a global settlement
with PG&E which:
• Compensated all the named plaintiffs in the
amount of $333 million
• Required PG&E to clean up the environment
• Required PG&E to stop using chromium 6