The legal issues in Erin Brockovich were very prominent. The company of PG&E between the years of 1952 and 1966 used Hexavalent Chromium to fight corrosion in the cooling tower water. (http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb6/water_issues/projects/pge/index.shtml) Over this time period, the water dissolved the Chromium 6 and leaked into the water supply of surrounding towns, poisoning the people's water supply, exposing them to this hazardous material. To keep this on the down low, PG&E paid for the doctors visit for families to have them report that nothing was wrong. Meanwhile, Brockovich went around the town of Hinkley and talked to anyone she could to find out about their lives and if there was anything wrong with anyone due to her finding out about the Hexavalent Chromium, she ended up talking to 600 people. She encouraged Ed Masry, the lawyer who hired her at his firm, to take on this case against the giant corporation that was worth 28 billion dollars. When it was all said and done, the 28 billion dollar company, PG&E had to payout a sum of 333 million dollars to the 600 people that they have poisoned. (http://www.brockovich.com/mystory.html) Of this 333 million dollars, Erin Brockovich got a whopping 2 million dollars for her hard work to bring this company to justice. This is just plain corruption within the corporations that run America. If something like this happens with a big corporation, instead of trying to hide, they should be focusing on how to remedy the situation. Paying off doctors to tell families that everything is ok, when in reality it's not, is just down right immoral. Those doctors working for the PG&E companies should have their licenses revoked and be out of work. Innocent people's lives are on the line and for what, not everything can be saved with money. Big corporations are just in it to make money and they don't really care what happens, as long as they make their money, everything is fine.
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