Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich is a prominent legal clerk and environmental activist known for her pivotal role in a landmark case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) regarding the contamination of drinking water in Hinkley, California, with chromium 6. Born Erin Pattee, she pursued a career that began with various jobs and culminated in her position as a secretary at a law firm, where she became involved in the Hinkley case. Her efforts were instrumental in gathering evidence and support from local residents affected by health issues, including cancers and miscarriages, attributed to the pollution caused by PG&E's operations.
Brockovich's determination led to the successful organization of legal action, ultimately resulting in a historic settlement of $333 million in 1996, the largest ever awarded in a direct-action lawsuit in the United States. Her story gained widespread recognition with the release of the film "Erin Brockovich" in 2000, featuring Julia Roberts in the title role. Since then, Brockovich has remained an active figure in environmental advocacy, participating in various pollution cases and authoring books. She also established her own consulting firm and contributed to media projects inspired by her experiences, continuing to educate the public on environmental issues.
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Erin Brockovich
IDENTIFICATION: Legal clerk and environmental activist
Erin Brockovich helped construct a legal case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company for its role in polluting the drinking water of Hinkley, California, with chromium 6. The clients in the case received the largest settlement ever awarded in the United States in a direct-action lawsuit.
Erin Brockovich was born Erin Pattee; her mother, Betty Jo O’Neal-Pattee, was a journalist, and her father, Frank Pattee, was an industrial engineer. She graduated from Lawrence High School in 1978 and earned an associate in applied arts degree from Wade Business College in Dallas, Texas, in 1980. She then became a management trainee for the Kmart retail chain and moved to California. After a period in which she married and divorced twice (Steve Brockovich was her second husband), had three children, and held a variety of jobs, she became a secretary for the law firm of Masry & Vititoe of Northridge, California, in 1991.
Brockovich was assigned to work on a pro bono case for a home owner in Hinkley, California, and quickly developed a rapport with the client who was bringing a lawsuit that alleged contamination of the town’s drinking water with chromium 6. Residents of the area, it was alleged, were experiencing above-average numbers of miscarriages and cancers. Brockovich discovered that from 1952 to 1966, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) used chromium 6 to fight in the cooling tower of its natural gas pumping station in Hinkley. Wastewater containing chromium 6 was then pumped into unlined ponds, from which it leached into the that supplied Hinkley’s drinking water. Brockovich pursued the case tenaciously and signed up more than six hundred additional persons to participate in the lawsuit. In 1996, after winning an initial round in court, the clients agreed to PG&E’s offer to settle all their claims against the company for $333 million—a record high settlement for a direct-action lawsuit in the United States.
The film Erin Brockovich was released in 2000 and starred Julia Roberts as Brockovich. It chronicled Brockovich's fight against PG&E. Throughout the first two decades of the twenty-first century, Brockovich remained an environmental activist and educator. She started her own consulting company in 2005 and worked on several other environmental pollution cases, including a 2016 methane gas leak in California and a 2023 train accidents in Ohio in which more than thirty cars carrying toxic chemicals derailed. Brockovich has also written several books and was an executive producer on the 2021 ABC television series, Rebel, which was loosely based on her life.
Bibliography
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