True Story of Erin Brockovich
Anderson v. PG&E

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Michael Kelly
Business Law
Professor Chowdry Erin Brockovich is the story of a woman who helped 650 people in Hinkley California get justice for the actions of Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E.) The case was titled Anderson v. PG&E and was actually settled outside of court. It was settled in the Superior Court for the County of San Bernardino, Barstow Division. The parties agreed on a settlement of $333 million to be distributed to the named plaintiffs. It is difficult to find the exact facts, statements, and decision reasoning of the case because the information is not public record. The information has remained private. It all started in …show more content…

They failed to comply with their duty of care, in consequence causing lot of people to become very sick from being exposed to the chemicals in their water. Under the duty of care concept comes the reasonable person standard. To determine if a duty of care has been breached, the court will ask how a reasonable person would have acted in the same circumstances (p.115, Miller). This idea is the reasonable person standard. The standard of behavior expected of a hypothetical reasonable person (p.115, Miller). The rule says that a reasonable person would be careful, reliable, and honest. In the case of PG&E, careful, reliable, and honest is what they were not. They were reckless and shady regarding the information they had concerning the water test conclusions. If the company would have came forward and admitted the results of the testing to people that could be affected, and then the reasonable person standard would not apply. But because they failed to inform the public of the contaminated water supply, they are held responsible for the lack of information produced. The last part of negligence is causation and damages. Causation is when the company/person fails in a duty of care and someone suffers injury. The wrongful activity must have caused harm for a tort to have been committed (p.117, Miller). Because this case was settled under arbitration it is unknown whether or not PG&E