Week 2 EOC: Erin Brockovich

In the case of PG&E vs. the people of the town of Hinkley 333 million was awarded. It was divided amongst the people after the initial 40% cut was taken out for the lawyers. The 40% amounted to a little over 133 million dollars. The cut for each person who was affected in this case was 300,000 dollars apiece. Erin Brockovich herself earned a 2 million dollar bonus for working the case.

I believe the victims weren’t all awarded correctly, because unlike Ms. Brockovich, they didn’t know how to go about extorting the law. She used her assets to extort documents; she extorted her boss with the same documents in order to get her job back. She then used the case in order to get a raise from her boss when she would gain new evidence in the case.

There is a difference though between Erin Brockovich extorting the law, and a lawyer extorting the law.
Erin Brockovich is just your run of the mill person who was tired of justice not prevailing. She really felt the need of the people and she wanted to make a difference. A lawyer on the other hand tends to be jaded to justice. They are blind to right, and wrong, and instead see the case as either settling, or winning. There is no in-between and when they do lose a case it costs them; because the money when the case is lost comes out of their pockets. So when a person has a case that is as big as the case Erin Brockovich's law firm took on, it is a bit scary. The investment the law firm put in was huge due to the fact that they were going against a company as big as PG&E. The odds of winning were not in their favor. But what makes this story such a good one is that justice did prevail. People were awarded, maybe not what they all deserved, but they were still awarded which is better than nothing.

The case was one of big companies bullying everyday people. The sad part is because of lawyers having to put a personal investment into every case, justice does not always win out. The law was taken to its full extent here in this case, but only because the lawyers were not held back by numbers. It goes to show you the law can only do so much unless you do know how to extort it. Which i do not believe is a bad thing. I believe it shows determination for justice prevailing in which it did in this case.

All numerical amounts and facts in this blog are from:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195685/faq