Chapter 57 Section 7

Fast-forward to 1982, and Jane Hilleman knew he couldn't procrastinate any longer, and he had to make a decision as soon as possible.If you intend to give up, you have to go to Woburn in person and make it clear to the clients in person.If you plan to prosecute, you must submit the pleadings to the court before May 22. Jane chose the former. One day in February, Jane Hilleman came to the Reverend Bruce Younger's Trinity Anglican Church. This was his second meeting with the patient's family. "It's also the last meeting." Jane said to herself. Before coming, his colleague and good friend Kevin Conway at the law firm of Reed Mulligan asked: "When you come back from Warburn, all the files about Warburn can be sealed and put into storage, yes Is it?" Jane nodded and said, "Yes." Kevin has been persuading Jane to give up the Warburn case. He described the Warburn case as a "bottomless black hole", no matter how much money is thrown in, it will almost disappear. There is no movement.

Jane repeated to his clients what he said last time: no defendants, no scientific evidence... "We have many, many questions, but we can't find any answers." Then he talked about Stewart The Eaton case.Such a simple case cost Jane seven months and more than fifteen thousand dollars.Jane shook her head helplessly, saying that your case is indeed too difficult. Everyone was speechless, waiting for the lawyer to stand up and shake hands with them to say goodbye.At this time, Pastor Young, who had been silent on the sidelines, said, "What if I tell you that I can get a sum of money?"

Jane thought to herself that the cost of a lawsuit cannot be raised by church donations and bazaars. Pastor Young went on to say that that very afternoon, he received a call from the office of Senator Edward Kennedy. They were looking for a representative environmental pollution case, and Senator Kennedy thought of Woburn.The senator's secretary immediately arranged for a three-way joint conference call between Rev. Young and Anthony Rothman, the executive chairman of the Bar Society.Everything was fine, Anthony said, but he couldn't get involved in a case that other lawyers were working on.

This is simply a coincidence made in heaven!Jane Hilleman inquired about the details of the conference call in detail, and told the clients that he would get in touch with Anthony Rothman as soon as possible to express his cooperation intention to the other party. Anthony Rothman is in his 40s and graduated from Harvard Law School. During the Carter administration, he served as the director of the Department of Justice's Hazardous Materials Division. It goes without saying that he has rich experience.Jane and Anthony hit it off.The day after the conversation between the two, Anthony flew from Washington to Boston.The two parties agreed to each bear half of the expenses, the Lawyers Association for two-thirds of the remuneration, and the other third to the law firm of Jane En and Reed Mulligan.Anthony also assigned one of his assistants to specialize in reviewing and collecting scientific and medical data on pollutants related to this case, and Anthony himself obtained the investigation report of the National Environmental Protection Agency on the source of pollutants in Woburn that has not yet been finalized through his connections. Several factories within a one-mile radius around wells G and H were listed, but no clear conclusions were made on the specific source of the pollutants.

Anthony also invited George Pinder, a professor at Princeton University and an expert on groundwater pollution and harmful substances.After a comprehensive analysis of various materials, Professor Pinder believes that there are two main sources of trichlorethylene in the well water, namely TCE, one is the food machinery factory of W. R. Glass Company located in the north of the two wells, and the other is Awa A 15-hectare vacant land belonging to J. J. Riller Tannery on the west bank of the Drona River. J.J. Riller's parent company is Chicago-based Beechose Group, and both it and W.R. Glass were among the top 500 companies in the United States at that time.That said, they are all very rich.

On May 14, eight days before the deadline for the prosecution, Jane and Anthony represented a total of eight leukemia patients and their families in Warburn—three more families later signed contracts with the firm—to W.R. Glass & Co. and Beechose Group sued.In order to avoid delays on the road, Jane personally sent the indictment to the court.The indictment stated that the harmful chemical waste liquid discharged by W. R. Glass Company and the subsidiary enterprises of the Beechs Group polluted the plaintiff's domestic water, among which the highest concentration of TCE is a "central nervous depressant, which can cause some serious diseases. Symptoms such as dizziness, anorexia, uncoordinated movements, liver lesions and cancer, etc."Contaminated tap water "contributed to an unusually high rate of leukemia in the community, killing five children and impairing the physical health of all members of the family".

One day at the end of May, the Beeches Group sent someone to send the indictment of the Warburn case to Jero Fischer, director of the trial department of Howler-Durr Law Firm in Boston. Jero, in his early 60s, is thin and shrewd, with a weird temper, and his gray curly hair is cut into a very short crew cut.Gero has also taught Trial Practice at Harvard Law School for the past 20 years. The Howler & Doerr law firm occupies the 10th floor of the 60 State Street skyscraper, but Gero has only a small office that does not match his status.The office offered to change him to a bigger room several times, but Jie Luo declined.He doesn't need a big office because he doesn't like working in an office, he just comes here every morning to pick up his mail, listen to his phone messages, and then disappear into his "hideout" somewhere.One of them is at the end of a corridor on the 21st floor, behind a large iron door.Inside the iron gate is a huge, dimly lit storage room, where boxes and boxes of outdated materials that are about to be destroyed are stacked up to the ceiling.In the center of the room, Gero used three desks to form a large desk. The documents on the desk were piled up like a mountain, and even spread to a sofa next to him.Whenever Gero received a case, he curled up tirelessly among these piles of old papers, charging hundreds of dollars an hour and earning more than half a million dollars a year.So far, Jerome Fisher has fought more than 60 lawsuits in court, most of which have won.More cases in his hands have been settled at the negotiating table before the official trial.It is no wonder that some people say that the gist of civil litigation is actually that the two parties sit down and negotiate terms.If it can be negotiated, at least it can save a court fee.