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  • Essay / The Nature of Our Civil Justice System in a Civil Action by Jonathan Harr

    The American civil justice system is important because it gives people the opportunity to obtain justice through the legal system when they are injured through misconduct or negligence on the part of others, even if it means taking on big business. Although this issue does not receive as much attention as criminal justice because its problems are not apparent, many Americans are involved in it every day. A Civil Action article by Jonathan Harr presents a civil justice system plagued by complexity and high costs. For example, the case of Jan Schlichtmann (the plaintiff's lawyer) should have been a simple case, but it turned into a legal conundrum full of technicalities that took a long time to resolve. A Civil Action provides practical and theoretical insight into the nature of civil justice system processes and how the massive nature of most civil litigation puts victims at risk. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayOne of the main problems Jan Schlichtmann faced during the trial in the Woburn case was identifying potential plaintiffs and all victims of contaminated water. Woburn had many people, because of this large population it was difficult to determine which children were affected by the contaminated water. Schlichtmann was initially unable to establish that the childhood leukemia cases were actually caused by contaminated water from Wells H and G. But it was later agreed that most of Woburn's leukemia cases were caused by toxins exposed to the environment suspected of being carcinogenic. Therefore, civil cases must be tailored according to the nature and scale of the dispute and provide solutions to the requirements of the disagreement. The second problem with civil lawsuits is the problem of undetermined defendants that Ian Schlichtmann encountered during the Woburn trial. The question of indefinite defendants arises when it is difficult, from the point of view of practice or principle, to precisely attribute responsibility for causing the damage to the perpetrators of the damage. This problem of indefinite defendants presents itself clearly in the Schlichtmann trial where it is unable to establish which company is responsible for the contamination of the water from wells G and H. The civil justice system is not consistent in whether the defendant should bear the burden when there are many defendants, such as the Woburn case. Schlichtmann launched formal complaints to prove that groundwater contamination by the WR Grace and Beatrice Foods companies caused leukemia. The main difficulty Schlichtmann encountered was proving the responsibility of these defendants. William Chessman, the defendants' attorney, refuted the claim, citing research by the plaintiff who admitted there was no solid evidence about the relationship between the families, the chemicals in the wells, and the Beatrice and Grace. This case has been obscured by establishing the causal link between the two companies as major polluters. Therefore, one can easily describe the American civil justice system as complicated and surrounded by procedures and technicalities that delay justice while making it costly; Schlichtmann had invested a fortune in this business, which later led him to file for bankruptcy. A civil action presents an opportunity to understand various undertakings of the civil justice system, in.