This is, hands down, to me the most interesting class suit to date.
We all probably have seen the movie but consider this one a neat rerun:
In early 1990s, at least 650 residents complained of hexavalent chromium contamination which resulted to many physical ailments, including bloody noses, bad backs, various intestinal ailments, rotten teeth, tumors and its ilk.
Such a sorry, lethal condition merited a whooping $333 million payout -- the largest settlement ever paid in a direct action lawsuit in U.S. history. For the money, the Anderson vs. Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) class suit, in my opinion is arguably the most interesting.
The case is more popularly called “Erin Brockovich” after one-time beauty pageant regular Erin Brockovich, who despite the lack of a formal law school education, led a group of 650 plaintiffs and built a case against the $30 billion PG&E, of California in 1993.
At the center of the case is a facility called the Hinkley Compressor Station, part of a natural gas pipeline stretching from the Texas Panhandle to the San Francisco Bay Area. Over the last 15 or 20 years prior to the disclosure, many of the Hinkley residents have drunk, bathed and swam in water polluted by the harmful chemical.
With an enormous facility seeping out highly toxic substances, the odds are hard to beat, as they are hard to ignore. In fact, in the early 1990s, when PG&E undertook a $12.5 million cleanup effort, it approached the owners of three farms and several houses in the area and offered to buy their properties; one resident’s property -- valued at $25,000 at the time – was paid $250,000!
Talk about lackadaisical steps, the mesmerizing series of offers of the giant utility clearly gave way for another, albeit providential, leak -- the news of a promising class suit that eventually led to a $333 million grand amount-of-a-defrayal to pacify the grievances.
The streaks of leak, or the looks of it, extended to nearby Hollywood when Julia Roberts was to become Erin Brockovich in a story that, we all guessed and saw it right, a $333 million ending.
I bet not 650 among us are wondering what now $333 million? How’s Erin? And any class suit aficionado would be eager to meet one of the 650 plaintiffs and check how the nose and teeth are?
After more than a decade, dealing with class suits is never the same again. Here and now, my back is aching -- I want to check the impact of ‘Erin’ on every American citizen’s fight for a fair game, because more likely than not nowadays there's going to be an Erin-inspired lawsuit filed.