Week 3 EOC: Erin Brockavich

Erin Brockavich got into a case with PG&E for polluted water that caused multiple families to get sick. The first settlement PG&E wanted was $200,00, but after they had refused to accept it and found more evidence of how PG&E was responsible for the polluted water, the next settlement was $20,000,000, and by the end of the case, 643 hinkley residents had hired Masry & Vititoe  to sue PG&E, and the final settlement came out to $333 million dollars, which became the biggest direct-action lawsuit in U.S history. I have mixed feelings about this because Erin Brockavich got over $2,000,000 from this and I think that is way to expensive, but then again I’m not an expert when it comes to law so I don’t really have that much to say about it, the victims of the case got a little over $300,000 from it, I’m not really sure if that would be enough because of how long the water had been bad but then again, if Erin had never done anything to begin with, they probably wouldn’t have seen any justice in the case at all, and since the lawyers get paid part of what the clients are paid, then it is worth it and since there was almost 700 people involved in the case and their was probably a lot more that were harmed that didn’t come forward, then it must have been pretty hard to divide the money up anyway. I also don’t get why they finished on a settlement instead of taking it to court, I get the company was trying to make a settlement so they wouldn’t lose a lot of money, but they were also trying to go on a settlement so the news of the case wouldn’t go out to the world, and even on a settlement they broke a record for biggest direct action lawsuit in U.S history, so its not like they were going to keep much of it a secret.