Plot

A flamboyant law firm secretary works tirelessly to gain justice for a small town wrecked by a utility company's pollution.

Erin Brockovich-Ellis is an unemployed single mother, desperate to find a job, but is having no luck. This losing streak even extends to a failed lawsuit against a doctor in a car accident she was in. With no alternative, she successfully browbeats her lawyer to give her a job in compensation for the loss. While no one takes her seriously, with her trashy clothes and earthy manners, that soon changes when she begins to investigate a suspicious real estate case involving the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. What she discovers is that the company is trying quietly to buy land that was contaminated by hexavalent chromium, a deadly toxic waste that the company is improperly and illegally dumping and, in turn, poisoning the residents in the area. As she digs deeper, Erin finds herself leading point in a series of events that would involve her law firm in one of the biggest class action lawsuits in American history against a multi-billion dollar corporation.—Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com>

Erin Brockovich-Ellis is a woman in a tight spot. Following a car accident in which Erin is not at fault, Erin pleads with her attorney Ed Masry to hire her at his law firm. Erin stumbles upon some medical records placed in real estate files. She convinces Ed to allow her to investigate, where she discovers a cover-up involving contaminated water in a local community which is causing devastating illnesses among its residents.—Jwelch5742

Julia Roberts stars in this legal drama based on the story of a woman who helped win the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit. Erin Brockovich (Roberts) is a single mother of three who, after losing a personal injury lawsuit, asks her lawyer, Ed Masry (Albert Finney), if he can help her find a job. Ed gives her work as a file clerk in his office, and she runs across some information on a little-known case filed against Pacific Gas and Electric. Erin begins digging into the particulars of the case, convinced that the facts simply don't add up, and persuades Ed to allow her to do further research; in time, she discovers a systematic cover-up of the industrial poisoning of a city's water supply, which threatens the health of the entire community.

In 1993, Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is an unemployed single mother of three children, who has recently been injured in a traffic accident with a doctor (who ran a red light and rammed into her car at an intersection) and is suing him. Her lawyer, Ed Masry (Albert Finney), expects to win. Erin testifies that she is $17,000 in debts, doesn't have insurance, and could not even take painkillers as she had 2 kids to take care of.

Erin's explosive courtroom behavior under cross-examination loses her the case (when the lawyer says that Erin is twice divorced and was very desperate and hence a doctor in a Jaguar would have looked like a prize catch), and Ed will not return her phone calls afterwards. Erin was anyways struggling to find a job and was relying on the winning from the case to pay her bills. She had $74 in her account. Erin's kids are Matthew (Scotty Leavenworth), Katie (Gemmenne De La Pena) and a baby girl Elizabeth.

One day, Ed arrives at work to find Erin in the office, apparently working. She says that Ed told her things would work out and they did not, and that she needed a job. Ed takes pity on Erin, and she gets a paid job at the office. Erin has the habit to dress very provocatively and resists any attempts by Ed to change her wardrobe.

Brenda (Conchata Ferrell) is Masry's secretary. Erin meets George (Aaron Eckhart) a biker, when he moves into the neighborhood. They get off on the wrong foot when George revs his bike really loudly at night when Erin's kids are asleep. Erin warms up to George when one day her babysitter bails on her, and George is kind enough to take care of the kids in Erin's absence. George is great with the kids and Erin loves it. George offers to help Erin with the kids.

Erin is given files for a real estate case where the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is offering to purchase the home of Donna Jensen (Marg Helgenberger), a resident of Hinkley, California. Erin is shunned by the other women in the office (including Anna (Adilah Barnes) and Brenda) due to her provocative dressing.

Erin is surprised to see medical records in the file and visits Donna (Marg Helgenberger), who explains that she had simply kept all her PG&E correspondence together. Donna says that she didn't put her house up for sale and it was PG&E who made an offer to buy it. Donna says that she didn't want to uproot the kids and move. Donna appreciates PG&E's help: she has had several tumors, and her husband has Hodgkin's lymphoma, but PG&E has always supplied a doctor at their own expense. Erin asks why they would do that, and Donna replies, "because of the Chromium". There is a huge PG&E plant in viewing distance from Donna's home.

Erin begins digging into the case and finds evidence that the groundwater in Hinkley is seriously contaminated with carcinogenic Hexavalent Chromium, but PG&E has been telling Hinkley residents that they use a safer form of Chromium. She visits the local water board to get photocopies of all records related to the contamination of the groundwater in Hinkley and PG&E's response to the notices sent by the water board, which were misleading. After several days away from the office doing this research, she is fired by Ed until he realizes that she has been working the entire time and sees what she has found out.

Meanwhile, Erin and George enter a romantic relationship. Rehired (with a 10% raise and health-care benefits including dental), she continues her research, and over time, visits many Hinkley residents and wins their trust. Erin tells Donna and the other residents that they and their families have been exposed to the Carcinogen form of Chromium, which is directly linked to cases of cancers in their families. The doctors never revealed this to the families as they were paid for by PG&E. Ed faxes the documents over the PG&E who send a junior lawyer David Foil (T. J. Thyne), who says that PG&E is willing to offer Jensens $250,000 for their home. But PG&E refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing in the contamination of groundwater at Hinkley, and the associated spread of cancer. PG&E is a $28 Billion corporation and Ed is insulted with them wasting his time.

Due to her effort with the case, Erin is barely home and her kids and even George feels neglected.

Ed's plan is not to sue PG&E but ask for a better sale price for the land, and a retroactive bonus for the families who already sold their land to PG&E. This is because there was a 1-year statute of limitations on lawsuits after the residents first came to know about the Hexavalent Chromium, and that was over a year ago. Erin finds many cases of tumors and other medical problems in Hinkley. Everyone has been treated by PG&E's doctors and thinks the cluster of cases is just a coincidence, unrelated to the "safe" Chromium which they believe is good for their health. Erin convinces Ed to sue PG&E as the families need compensation for the injustice done to them. It takes Erin another 9 months to collect samples, gather more evidence from the water board office and meet the effected families. The Jensens' claim for compensation grows into a major class action lawsuit (with 634 plaintiffs), but the direct evidence only relates to PG&E's Hinkley plant, not to the senior management.

George misses the feel of the open road, and leaves on his bike. This puts Erin in a difficult position as she used to leave the kids with George for days, and she cannot do that with a babysitter.

Ed takes the matter to court and forces PG&E to respond with an offer to settle. Ms. Sanchez (Gina Gallego), a PG & E attorney meets Ed and offers $20 million. Erin loses her temper at Sanchez at the insultingly low offer and gives a glass of water that she says came from Hinkley. Sanchez beats a hasty retreat from Ed's office. Since Ed was bleeding money at this point, he brings in a bigger law firm to share the costs.

Knowing that PG&E could slow any settlement for years through delays and appeals, Ed takes the opportunity to arrange for disposition by binding arbitration, but a large majority of the plaintiffs must agree to this. Erin returns to Hinkley and persuades all 634 plaintiffs to go along. While she is there, a man named Charles Embry (Tracey Walter) approaches her to say that he and his cousin were PG&E employees, but his cousin recently died from the poison. The man says he was tasked with destroying documents at PG&E, but "as it turns out," he "wasn't a very good employee".

Embry gives Erin the documents, which include a 1966 memo proving corporate headquarters knew the water was contaminated with Hexavalent Chromium, did nothing about it, and advised the Hinkley operation to keep this secret. The judge orders PG&E to pay a settlement amount of $333 million to be distributed among the plaintiffs.

In the aftermath, Ed hands Erin her bonus payment for the case but warns her he has changed the amount. She explodes into a complaint that she deserves more respect but is astonished to find that he has increased it-to $2 million.