A Civil Action | Jonathan Harr | Behind the Scenes View of Personal Injury Litigation Concerning...

A Civil Action | Jonathan Harr | Further research and a PREQUEL needed!

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A Civil Action

	A Civil Action Jonathan Harr Vintage, 1996 - 502 pages average customer review:based on 342 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Behind the Scenes View of Personal Injury Litigation Concerning Pollution

Most people believe that if they are harmed by a wealthy corporation or person, a personal injury lawyer will take up their cause and win them a fortune. It's almost a parallel to the belief that you could hit the jackpot in the lottery, even thought the odds are astronomically against it. A Civil Action will cure many people of their belief in civil actions as a way to secure timely redress. Well, there's still the lottery!

More significantly, A Civil Action gives you a Shakespearean look at how demanding litigation takes a toll on all of the participants. I found myself fascinated by the psychology of wanting to win at virtually any cost and how that dynamic plays out among the lawyers, judge and parties. There's also lots of plain old human sin -- lying, cheating, and deliberately misleading. What kind of a life do you have in such a situation? I doubt if you'll read about one you'd exchange for . . . no matter how much money is involved.

I urge you not to get bogged down in the facts and the legal issues. That may cause you to miss the drama. Think of this as a novel, and you'll gain more from it.

Mr. Harr had remarkable access to the extended elements of this famous case and shares what he learned in restrained, but oh so revealing, fashion.

I have met three of the primary characters in the book, and I can attest that Mr. Harr caught them just as I perceive them. That's rare. Usually, if I read about someone I've met, I cannot recognize them from the writing. Mr. Harr is exceptionally talented in this regard.

Your child contracts leukemia. Pretty soon, you find out that other children in your part of town have the same disease. That doesn't cure the heartache, but it does give you other shoulders to lean on. From that deep pain, you begin to want to do something. Could it be that someone did something wrong? That's the impetus that pushed this case forward.

From there, the issue becomes a plaything of the attorneys where egos and money rule. You'll think you are reading about petty tyrants in their castles during the Middle Ages as they sally forth in suits of armor to joust and jab at one another.

But then, the case begins to bog down. What is truth? What can be proven? You find yourself facing some of the most basic questions about how we know anything.

The book ultimately becomes like the Thrilla in Manila as heavyweights sock each other remorselessly . . . but none go down. The drama is compelling because it's real. I wouldn't enjoy a novel that said these things because it would seem too extreme to be real.

I stayed up late three nights in a row to finish the book. It's great!

I do hope that Mr. Harr will revisit this case and write a sequel at some point in the future.

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Further research and a PREQUEL needed!

This is a story of a small group of families who tried to get answers as to what exactly happened in Woburn, however, some background is needed:
In the 1960s Woburn was lobbied aggressively as a site for a NASA research center involving President Kennedy and with the Mayor at the time(Mayor Gilgun) chairing a committee called the "NASA for Woburn" committee. Another Woburn resident,Carl Roessler, chaired the "Save our shipyard" committee, representing the 3000 Boston Navy yard workers. Woburn lies in Middlesex county, which also contained Somerville, a key city for Howie Winters and Buddy Mclean.Roessler was president of Trans-Sonic, an enigmatic company which sold flow measurement equipment. The Boston Navy yard lied in Boston, near where the Bernie Mclaughlin hailed from. In Wilmington,AVCO worked on Voyager while on one border lay a NIKE missile site. Two towns over RCA worked on the Apollo project. At one focal point in its history,Woburn was at the hub of an economy in turmoil, as space budgets increased to a corresponding military decrease.The USDA, NASA,U.S. Dept. of Health and Human services and more converged on the area. Boston Edison approved the site for development and Woburn was approved prior to a physical survey of the land. NASA fell through and was broken into 2 parts: 1) the future Johnson Space Center,and 2) Draper Labs.In the Whitey Bulger case, Agents Morris,Condon,Rico,Connelly hail from Middlesex county. Frank Salemme,Sonny Mercurio and others also hailed from there.As the Bulger case broiled, Agent Barry Mawn, a Woburn native, was brought in- much like Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba.And in the 1960s, a small group of families did bring up issues about the water under Michael Gatta, a local attorney.
Source? Daily newspapers from 1961-1971.

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Cloak and Dagger.......

...pretty much describes what went on here. One person superficially uninvolved in this case became the target of substantial scrutiny when this book came out, as if there is a connection between him and this case. Here's what happened and you decide if something is shaky with this case:
1)Man was called for job interviews in which the interviewer inevitably brought up this book and what he thought about the case in general. Each time, no job was offered and in many cases the interviewer became completely unreachable following the interview.
2) At an interview with Videoserver, the man was videotaped. At Cognos, a writing sample and bogus exam to get such a sample was administered by a woman who may have been a government employee and not a personnel official with that company.At Cerulean, the man was called out for 3 interviews and suddenly became unknown to the company on showing for the third interview while the manager who called it could not be located. At White Mountain Pines software which offered CUCME programs which could be used for messaging or chat,the man was photographed in a chair in the lobby by a camera mounted halfway down in front of the reception desk and aimed at the seat he was told to take. Again, no one knew why he was there when he showed up for an interview after a phone call the afternoon before.
3) The man was fired from Grace when Harr's book came out and could only get work with companies which Grace did business with or were mutual clients of Omnitech International,which Grace has been a client of.

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Good but a continuation needed!

Was JFK killed because of his sponsorship of this area for a NASA space center and the USS Thresher disaster which may have been the result of sabotage in the fight for various bases to remain open in the wake of defense cuts?

Is the whole country like this?

In reading this one might wonder if the United States and perhaps the whole world is vastly polluted beyond public pronouncement. Was the premise of the "Lost in Space" television series ahead of its time in denoting a dying planet?

A reader might also question what any employee and specifically a person in an environmental,health and safety role might do if confronted with a company dumping knowingly harmful chemicals in the backlot. If such an employee went to OSHA or EPA for example, would such agencies protect them and would they be able to get employment as a result of trying to stop it? Don't goverment officials often have to pursue a private career and could a conflict of interest ensue if they are put in a position to enforce against prospective employers? And if former high level government officials are serving on the Boards of such companies, what retaliation might occur if an employee takes action after all internal efforts have failed?

Perhaps the most important aspect of this case is that it shows a group of families, following suit of those previously led by attorney Michael Gatta, trying to establish what happened,why and who was responsible.

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