MAIN CHARACTERS in Erin Brockovich

1
MAIN CHARACTERS in Erin Brockovich

• Erin Brockovich
• Main character in movie, leading role
• Smart with a very powerful voice, always says
• whats on her mind
• Willing to do whatever it takes to support
• her family 3 children
• Matthew 8
• Katie 6
• Beth 10 months
• Married divorced twice
• Beginning of the movie she is on her last 16
  dollars
• her bank account later becomes a millionaire
  after
• she wins the case

2
Ed Masry

• Boss of Erin owns his own law firm
• Firm turns from small town, independent law firm
  to big time corporate law firm at the end of the
  movie
• First hesitant to hire Erin she persuaded him to
  do so
• First impression of Erin was a dumb hick who
  looks like someone who has a lot of fun
• Smart man, but is unwilling to speak up, so Erin
  does
• Rewards Erin greatly at the end of the movie with
  a large sum of money

3
George

• Erins love interest throughout the movie
• Watches her kids while she is at work
• In a motorcycle crew
• Nice and caring man treats kids and Erin with
  respect
• Leaves Erin in the middle of the movie because
  she works too much and he doesnt have time for
  himself
• Gets back together with Erin at the end of the
  movie

4
Charles Embry

• Meets Erin in the beginning of the
• movie seen as weird, creepy man
• Erin meets him again at a bar, but this time she
  thinks he is hitting on her
• Ends up being the man that cracks the case
• He tells her that he worked at the Hinkley plant
  cleaning the cooling towers and he was told to
  destroy certain documents
• Turns out he kept the documents that proved the
  main PGE plant in San Francisco knew what was
  going on in Hinkley and he turned them over to
  Erin
• Cousin passed away from kidney tumors caused by
  the chromium poisoning

5
Donna Jensen

• The case that started Erins investigation
• Erin wanted to find out why PGE needed to know
  their medical records and what it had to do with
  selling a house
• Has cancer caused by chromium poisoning (this
  wasnt found out until later in the movie)
• Has a husband and two kids
• She is the first person Erin tells about winning
  the case
• Receives 3 million in compensation
• Says to Erin after being diagnosed with cancer
  again You gotta promise me we are going to get
  them.

6
Kurt Potter

• Joins with Masry and Brockovich
• Provides Masry firm with money to fund the case
• Receives compensation if the court case is won
  (and it is)
• Case would not have been won without his
  interference
• At first, doesnt seem like a nice man, but later
  we learn to trust him
• Does not think Erin is going to put everything
  together until she uncovers the information given
  to her by Embry

7
Factual Information About Hinkley vs. PGE

• The court case was actually called Anderson vs.
  Pacific Gas Electric.
• It took place in Hinkley, California. Hinkley is
  located in the Mojave Desert, near the town of
  Barstow, California. It is not far off the famous
  Route 66, about 150 miles from Las Vegas.
• On December 7, 1987 officials from the company
  advised the State of California they had detected
  levels of hexavalent chromium (chrome 6), a
  highly toxic and fatal cancer-causing chemical in
  a groundwater monitoring well north of the
  compressor station's waste water ponds. The
  levels were ten times greater than the maximum
  amount allowed by law.

8

• After PGE reported the pollution to the
  government, company officials started a program
  to buy every piece of property in the community
  thought to be affected by the pollution. In what
  was said to have been a response to vandalism,
  PGE had 75 of those houses and buildings
  destroyed.
• PGE told the citizens of Hinkley that they had
  been using chromium in their drinking water
  making it seem as if it had actually been
  beneficial, but failed to mention the dangerous
  type of chromium it had dumped in the
  environment, also making it seem like the
  detection was a new development.

9

• Based on the evidence, high levels of chrome 6
  contamination found in 1987 could not have been a
  surprise to the company, notwithstanding whether
  senior management knew. People and animals who
  lived in the area had been breathing, ingesting,
  and absorbing dangerous toxins into their bodies
  for decades. Evidence was later found proving
  that the main branch of PGE in San Francisco did
  know what was going on in Hickley.
• PGE didn't line the ponds until 1972. The
  company sent 750,000 additional gallons of chrome
  6 wastewater every month to the ponds for another
  six years.

10

• Once the toxic material was in the unlined ponds,
  there was nothing to stop it from migrating to
  the wells that supplied nearby homes, farms and
  ranches.
• Erin Brockovich and her boss made the decision to
  represent these people. When 77 initial
  plaintiffs filed their lawsuit against PGE in
  1993, it was the direct result of a monstrous
  effort by this dedicated legal team.

11

• As lawyers for both sides fought, the case grew.
  Eventually 648 plaintiffs joined the lawsuit.
• by September 19, 1994 the parties reached an
  agreement to arbitrate/mediate. The agreement
  pulled the case out of the trial court - where a
  jury would have decided it - and placed it into
  the hands of Justice John K. Trotter and Judge
  Daniel H. Weinstein, two outstanding retired
  jurists

12
An End to Anderson vs. PGE

• At the end of the two year long arbitration
  trial, the plaintiffs reached a global settlement
  with PGE which
• Compensated all the named plaintiffs in the
  amount of 333 million
• Required PGE to clean up the environment
• Required PGE to stop using chromium 6