Civil Action
1h 55m
December 25, 1998
A Civil Action is a 1998 American legal drama movie starring John Travolta, Robert Duvall, James Gandolfini, Dan Hedaya, John Lithgow, William H. Macy, Kathleen Quinlan, and Tony Shalhoub. It was directed and written by Steven Zaillian. It relates the real account of a court case regarding environmental contamination that occurred in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1980s and is based on Jonathan Harr’s 1995 book of the same name. A local aquifer’s poisoning by the industrial solvent trichloroethylene is the subject of both the movie and the court action. A lawsuit was brought against industrial activities for what looked to have been the city’s residents’ fatal cases of leukaemia and cancer as well as a wide range of other health issues.
Anne Anderson, et al. v. Cryovac, Inc., et al. is the case in question. The rejection of the defendants’ request to dismiss is the case’s first reported decision, which is found in 96 F.R.D. 431. Due to his portrayal, Duvall received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.