Erin Brockovich – Detailed Film Synopsis

The film starts in the middle of a job interview between the CEO of a company and Erin
Brockovich, a twice divorced, unemployed and broke young woman. In the course of this interview
Erin explains that she never graduated from a high school and basically has no qualifications because
she has been caring for her children for many years. However, she also says that she tried a few jobs
and that she is a fast learner.

The CEO is not impressed and does not hire her, so she returns to her car, removes a parking
ticket from under her windshield wiper and pulls out into the street. She comes to a crossroads.
Although the traffic lights turn green shortly before she gets there, a fast car approaches from the
right and crashes into her car. There are a few people standing around on the sidewalk, and no other
cars. Later, in court, Erin will have no witnesses proving that the traffic light was green for her.

Next, we are shown the office of a law firm. Ed Masry, who runs this company, arrives at his
office in the morning and hears from one of his employees that there is a young woman – Erin -
waiting for him. She explains that it is a pro bono case about a car accident, and that the case was
referred. Erin is wearing a neck brace because she was injured in the accident. Erin tells Ed the
details, and Ed replies that ‘whoever did this to you made one hell of a mistake’ and promises that he
or she ‘will have to pay for it.’

The next scene is in court, during a hearing of Erin’s lawsuit. Ed Masry has sued the driver of
the other car on behalf of Erin. Erin – the plaintiff - is asked to tell the judge what happened. Erin
reports the details of the accident, but the attorney of the defendant, who happens to be an ER
(Emergency Room) doctor, asks Erin a few questions that cause Erin to react in an aggressive way.
Erin has no health insurance, so she cannot pay the medical bill amounting to 17,000 dollars. Thus,
she is now $ 17,000 in debt at her bank. The defense attorney asks her if her husband is going to help
out with the medical costs. Erin asks back, ‘which one?’, and the members of the jury raise their
eyebrows when they hear that she has had two husbands. The defense attorney then suggests that
she is ‘broke, three kids, no job’ implying that in reality she caused the accident on purpose so that
she would get financial compensation by the insurance of the doctor. Erin’s reaction to this
implication is immediate and rather aggressive; she also uses bad, inappropriate language. That is
probably the reason why she ends up losing the case. On the way out Erin accuses Ed, ‘You told me I
had a good shot! Do they teach lawyers to apologize? Because you suck at it.’

On the way home Erin collects her kids at her neighbor’s home, who looks after them,
occasionally. Erin learns that she will have to look for a new babysitter because her neighbor is going
to move to her daughter’s house.

Back home, Erin tries to ‘fix dinner’ for her three kids, but there is not much food in the
refrigerator, so she decides to take them to a restaurant, where the kids get to order their
hamburgers, but Erin herself does not eat anything and lies to her children about a ‘fancy lunch’ that
she has had with her lawyer, to celebrate her new job… That night, when her kids are sleeping, Erin
finally has her dinner: She opens a tin and eats directly from it.

The next day Erin continues looking for a job. She checks job advertisements in newspapers
trying to find something suitable. She then calls several places, but to no avail. Being in the
unfortunate situation that she doesn’t ‘really have a resumé’, as she explains to one company, she
finds nothing. Erin also tries to call Ed Masry multiple times, but she can never reach him. His
employees keep telling her that he will call back, but then he doesn’t.

In the next scene we see Ed Masry in his office. He suddenly spots Erin and asks his
employees what she is doing here. They tell her that ‘she works here.’ So Ed finds out that Erin has
come to his office pretending that Ed hired her. Ed talks to her, and Erin tells him that ‘if you had a
 Erin Brockovich – Detailed Film Synopsis

full staff, you’d return a client’s damn call.’ Ed tells her that he doesn’t need anybody, but Erin insists.
She tells him in a low voice, ‘Please don’t make me beg. It if doesn’t work out just fire me.’ She
eventually manages to persuade Ed to keep her, so she has found a new job!

The next days we see Erin starting her new job with Ed Masry’s law firm. She is introduced to
her new duties, and her new boss even gives her 100 dollars in cash in advance for her paycheck.

On the way home we see Erin picking up her three kids at her new babysitter’s home, a
reluctant woman who doesn’t seem to like her job very much. At home she gives her kids dinner and
brings them to bed. Suddenly she hears a very loud noise coming from the engine of a motorcycle
nearby. A new neighbor has moved in, who is fond of Harley Davidsons. She gets out immediately
and shouts at her new neighbor, telling him to stop that noise at once. The young man turns off the
engine of his motorbike and introduces himself as George. He tries to get into a friendly conversation
with Erin because he seems to find her attractive. George sincerely apologizes for the noise he made,
but Erin is not impressed.

Back in the office, there is a short incident in which Ed tells Erin that the other ‘girls’ working
in the office seem think that she should ‘rethink’ her wardrobe, that she should wear something else,
but Erin sternly replies that she will wear whatever she likes. She even tells Ed to ‘rethink those ties.’

One day Erin sees a file with real estate documents, but in the same file there are also
medical records about blood samples. Realizing that the two things actually have nothing to do with
each other, she asks a colleague what this might mean, but she gets an unfriendly, evasive answer.

On her way home she goes to her new babysitter to collect (pick up) the kids, but nobody’s
there. She gets very scared and rushes home, shouting out loud the names of the kids when she gets
to her house, but the house is empty. She hears the chatter and laughter of some kids in her
backyard, runs out and finds her neighbour George having a barbecue lunch with her kids. She asks
George what happened. George explains that her babysitter just dropped her kids off saying that
‘something has come up.’ Erin is very angry but also relieved because she sees that her kids are safe
with George. They are even having fun. Later, in her house, George plays cards with the kids until
Erin sends them to bed. When they are gone, George offers to be their new babysitter, because he
likes kids and is currently unemployed. Erin initially refuses, but George insists until Erin agrees. She
seems more afraid of a new relationship with a man (George) than of the idea of having George
caring for her kids.

Back at work in her office, Erin has a closer look at the file with the medical records and the
blood samples, mixed with real estate documents. She sees an offer by the PG&E corporation in San
Francisco to “purchase real estate”. In this case it’s the house of the Jensen family in Hinkley,
California. In the same file there are also clinical reports from blood samples of the Jensen family that
show various abnormalities, such as increased lymphocytes, which is a sign of infections or an
inflammation somewhere in the body.

Erin decides that she wants to investigate this case to find out why the medical records are in
this file. She asks her boss Ed if she can do that, and Ed agrees. However, Ed is in the middle of a
phone call and does not pay much attention to Erin’s request, so Erin understands that she can just
travel to the Jensen family and other places, thereby staying away from her office.

So she drives to Hinkley and visits Donna Jensen, who welcomes her in their house. Donna
tells Erin that both her husband Pete and she have been sick, and that PG&E paid for the doctor’s
visits. She also says that PG&E let them know that the water in Hinkley contains chromium that
 Erin Brockovich – Detailed Film Synopsis

comes from their plant, but they explain that this chromium is harmless and has nothing to do with
their illnesses.

Erin decides to learn more about the chromium and gets in touch with a toxicologist at UCLA
(University of California at Los Angeles). The toxicologist explains to her that there are various kinds
of chromium, some of them are harmless or even good for the body, but hexavalent chromium is
extremely toxic, highly carcinogenic (causes cancer), and it even gets into the DNA, changes it and
passes on the problems to the next generation. The toxicologist suggests that Erin might have a look
at the records at the water board, to see if there’s any evidence that there is hexavalent chromium in
the water.

So Erin goes to the water board and quickly persuades the rather shy clerk that she needs to
have a look at the water files – to “squeeze back there and poke around” by herself, so as to find any
documents that may contain the evidence she is looking for. Of course, she leaves the clerk in the
dark as to what exactly she is looking for. As the toxicologist warned her, “incriminating records have
a way of disappearing when people smell problems.”

Erin does find some interesting documents, such as a “clean-up and abatement order” in
connection with hexavalent chromium, and other documents containing the words “pollution” and
“contamination”, also in connection with water and hexavalent chromium. Erin photocopies all
documents she finds.

This investigation lasts several days, so obviously Erin does not go to her office. When she
turns up the next week, she finds her desk empty, all her belongings (“my stuff”) gone. She is told
that “this isn’t a job where you can disappear for days at a time”, and “you don’t leave a message and
take off.” She has been fired. Ed offers to find another job for her, but Erin refuses and leaves.

When Erin comes home, George is lying on the floor under the kitchen sink, trying to repair a
leak. Erin is very upset and unfriendly, and tells him to just leave it. She even sees a cockroach and
starts screaming and complaining about why they have to live like that (thereby using the “f”-word
quite generously). George tries to calm her down and comforts her when he learns that she has been
fired. George and Erin get closer and kiss each other; Erin’s babysitter has now become her new
partner.

So Erin is back to checking newspaper job ads. However, a few days later suddenly the
doorbell rings: Ed has come to ask her something. Erin is very reserved and reluctant to even talk to
the man that just fired her. But when Ed explains that he has come to ask her about a telephone call
he got from a toxicologist at UCLA, who explained to him that the legal limit of hexavalent chromium
in water is much lower than the amounts mentioned by Erin. Erin says she will explain – if Ed hires
her back. Ed realizes that he made a mistake assuming that Erin was just having fun instead of
working, so he agrees. Erin tells him about her visit at the Jensen family, their illnesses, and what
PG&E said to them about the chromium. She also tells him about all the documents she copied at the
water board, but before she hands them to him, she negotiates a raise, with benefits, including
dental.

Back to work, the first thing Erin does is that she goes back to Donna Jensen and explains to
her that the water they are using is heavily contaminated with very toxic hexavalent chromium, and
that PG&E did not tell her the truth. The doctor that told them that the chromium had nothing to do
with their illnesses was paid by PG&E… Donna needs a few minutes to let this news sink in, but then
she runs out to her kids, who are jumping in the water of their little swimming pool, and tells them to
get out immediately.
 Erin Brockovich – Detailed Film Synopsis

Back in the office, Ed has all of Erin’s documents faxed to PG&E’s claim department. He gets
an immediate response. PG&E send a representative to his office, with a new offer: 250,000 dollars
for the house of the Jensens (the original offer was $ 66,500), which is much higher than the market
value of their house. Ed counters that “$250,000 isn’t gonna come close to what this family’s gonna
have to spend on doctors.” and refuses. The man sent by PG&E tries to impress Ed by mentioning
that PG&E is a 28 billion-dollar-corporation and warns him that he shouldn’t get involved in a
“crusade” against such a powerful opponent. Ed just says that he will show PG&E’s offer to his
clients, but “I doubt they’ll accept it.” “28 billion! Holy cow! I didn’t know it was that much!” Ed is not
impressed.

One night a couple comes to see her in her office. They tell her that they were neighbors of
the Jensens and PG&E bought their house, so they moved somewhere else. They show Erin photos of
sick and dead chickens they had when they were residents in Hinkley. The woman also says that she
had five miscarriages and that all of these things might have something to do with the contamination
from hexavalent chromium.

Erin is very busy and comes home late every day. Her son Matthew is cross with her because
she is never at home, and when she is, in her mind she is still busy with this PG&E case that is getting
bigger every day because she finds ever more residents that have health issues, very probably
related to the water contamination. On one occasion, Ed and Erin pay a visit to the Jensens and
another family, explaining to them the details of a possible lawsuit against PG&E. Ed also tells them
that his fee is “40% of whatever you get awarded.” If they lose the case Ed Masry gets nothing. This
means the longer the case lasts, the more costs he will have, with no income whatsoever. For this
reason Ed Masry is not really interested in suing PG&E for the water contamination, only for the
medical costs the Jensen family had. The Jensens hesitate when they hear that the fee is so high, but
in the end they understand that Ed Masry also accepts the risk of getting nothing.

Erin presses Ed to sue PG&E for the water contamination and all its serious health issues it
caused with many residents. Ed refuses because he is afraid of such a huge case against such a
wealthy corporation that could “bury [him] in paperwork for years”, and his company is not big
enough to cover all the costs for such a long time. However, Erin insists, telling him that she will be
able to provide evidence of the contamination. Eventually Ed agrees to take the risk and sue PG&E on
behalf of a large number of plaintiffs.

So Erin drives out to Hinkley and collects as much evidence as she can – contaminated water
and a dead frog from a water well, and more documents from the water board. At the water board
Erin confronts the clerk Scott by asking him how he sleeps at night when he knows that people are
getting sick and dying from PG&E’s contaminated water, and he has all those documents proving that
PG&E is responsible. She lets him know that she got a threatening phone call from a guy that called
her “Pattee”, a name that only Scott could have known.

A few months later Ed promotes his case at a party event in a field with many Hinkley
residents attending. One man approaches Erin; he tells her that he used to work at PG&E and
explains to her how the contamination came about in the first place: The excess cooling water that
PG&E needed in their cooling towers was collected in ponds that were not lined, so the water
containing the hexavalent chromium seeped into the ground and into the groundwater. Erin also
learns that this has been going on for 14 long years, which means that millions of gallons of the
contaminated water reached the groundwater.

Ed Masry gets increasingly nervous because he cannot bear the burden of such high costs:
The case has been going on for months, with no revenue whatsoever for him. “Money’s going out,
nothing’s coming in.” Erin has already found as many as 411 plaintiffs, so it has become a monster
 Erin Brockovich – Detailed Film Synopsis

case. Ed even had to take up a new mortgage to cover the costs and is actively looking for a partner
law firm to share the expenses.

One day Erin goes to see Donna Jensen, who is lying in her bed, very sick. She had one more
tumour – this time it was no longer benign, but malign, and the surgeons had to remove her uterus
(an operation called hysterectomy). Donna is very upset and bitter. With tears in her eyes she
desperately begs Erin “You gotta promise that we’re gonna get them.”

In the meantime, PG&E headquarters in San Francisco have found a way to shrug off all
responsibility regarding the contamination of the water. They now simply claim that they didn’t know
anything about what has happening at their plant in Hinkley. So a judge is called to decide whether
the case is important enough for a class action of all plaintiffs together, or only one plaintiff at a time
– which would take forever. The judge understands that PG&E have been playing down the toxicity
of hexavalent chromium; not only did they keep the Hinkley residents uninformed, they even told
them that it was good for them. So the judge pronounces his verdict: There will be a class action
against PG&E. Still, Erin and Ed must find evidence that proves that PG&E headquarters in San
Francisco did know about the contamination.

Following this verdict, PG&E sends a delegation of lawyers to Ed Masry’s office with a new
offer: $ 20,000,000 for all plaintiffs, so as to put this whole thing to rest. They do not get the
response they hoped for: Erin asks them to think about the value of a uterus, or “I want you to think
“real” (=really) hard about what your spine is worth.” Then they should multiply that sum by the
number of plaintiffs, and anything less than that is a waste of time. Erin then offers one lawyer a
glass of water: “We had that water brought in “special” (=especially) from Hinkley for you, folks…”
The lady puts the glass down, without touching the water, with an awkward grin on her face, and
they leave.

Back home the next problem looms: George has had enough of his career as a babysitter, and
Erin is never around, always busy with her case. He shows her a pair of earrings that he saw in a mall
one day, six months ago, thinking that they would look good on Erin’s ears. But he never got the
chance to give her this present. “You need to find another job or another guy.” he says to her, but
Erin makes it absolutely clear to him that she has no intentions to quit this job. “This is the first time
people respect me for who I am, not for who my husband is. How can you ask me to quit this job?” So,
George tells her that since she got a raise, she now has enough money for a babysitter, grabs his bag
that he had already packed before Erin got home, places the little case with the earrings on her bed,
and leaves.

The next day Erin goes to the office with her kids. There she gets to meet Kurt Potter, a
lawyer that has agreed to become Ed’s partner in this case. He even agreed to cover all costs up to
this day. Ed is very happy that he found him, but Erin gets upset. She accuses Ed of not informing her
earlier, and she says it’s easy for them to step in now that all the major work has already been done.
Ed reminds her of the pending costs, and tells her that Kurt Potter is a specialist in cases like this.
“This is good news!” he says.

Ed, Erin, Kurt Potter and his assistant lawyer Theresa have a meeting in which Kurt explains
that PG&E has “requested that we submit to binding arbitration.” This means that there is going to be
only one trial without a jury, only with a judge, and the judge’s decision is final, with no possibility to
appeal. He explains that while this is risky, the good thing about binding arbitration that it is much
faster. Not having the chance to appeal may sound like a bad idea, but things change when you
consider that if PG&E do have a chance to appeal, they will certainly do so, and that could last
forever, even 10 or 15 years. Erin says there must be a full trial because she has personally promised
all plaintiffs that there will be a proper trial. Theresa asks Erin to “fill in the holes in [her] research” –
 Erin Brockovich – Detailed Film Synopsis

things that “you probably didn’t know to ask.” That remark drives Erin up the wall. She replies,
“Excuse me, Theresa… is it? There are no holes in my research. I know more about those plaintiffs
than you ever will.” Theresa says that some phone numbers are missing. Erin then asks her what
telephone number she needs. Theresa produces the name of one plaintiff, and Erin tells her
everything about him, his wife, his kids, their illnesses, their address, their relatives, all of their phone
numbers… what she said about herself in the interview at the beginning of the film is true: She is a
fast learner and has a splendid memory.

Kurt Potter writes a letter to all plaintiffs to explain the binding arbitration. Theresa goes to
Hinkley to interview them, asking the same things as Erin, but she is not very good with people. She
is too cool and professional to them, too distant, very clumsy and awkward; they don’t like her.
Furthermore, they don’t understand “this arbitration thing” and why they are being asked the same
questions again.

Erin is shocked, and so is Ed. Potter “screwed this up and he admits it!” he says to Erin. The
people in Hinkley just did not understand the letter written by Kurt Potter. Ed says it could just as
well have been “written in Sanskrit”.

Things seem to be getting out of hand when Pamela, a plaintiff with a strong character whose
story with illnesses is especially bad (her kids had constant nosebleeds and when they brought them
to hospital the hospital staff called social services because they assumed the kids were being
abused!) writes a letter to the plaintiffs “telling everybody to get new lawyers.”

Ed reacts by organizing an informative meeting for all plaintiffs in a large hall. He explains to
them that the only feasible solution is the binding arbitration, because a normal trial that can be
appealed by PG&E could last forever, and they wouldn’t see any money for many years. “We all know
that some people here cannot afford to wait that long” he adds. Ed is quite persuasive and clear, so
at the end of the meeting all plaintiffs in the hall sign their consent to binding arbitration. Erin tells
him, “You did well!”

Now Ed and Erin have to get in touch with the plaintiffs that had not turned up at the
meeting in the hall. They drive from home to home and collect all signatures. Erin asks George to
watch over the kids. One night, on the way home, Erin goes into a bar to drink a cup of coffee. A
strange guy that had already tried to get in touch with her at that open-air meeting in the fields
months ago approaches her and talks to her in a way that makes Erin think he wants to pick her up.
But when he says, “Would it be important, when I worked at the plant, that I destroyed documents?”
she gets so excited that she runs out to her car to call Ed, so she can ask him how to interview this
guy. Ed’s advice is to let him talk without interfering too much. So Erin, trying hard to look relaxed,
goes back into the bar and invites this guy to a beer. It turns out that he had really worked at the
PG&E plant, and he was asked to destroy documents. But he understood that they had asked him to
do that because those documents were incriminating to them. Among other things, they constituted
proof that PG&E headquarters in San Francisco had known about the hexavalent chromium
contamination problem for a very long time. So when he understood that, he decided not to destroy
those documents.

With that evidence, Ed Masry can now “nail” PG&E headquarters and show that they were
responsible for all the contamination and all those illnesses. A few days later Ed and Erin have a
meeting with Kurt Potter and his assistant Theresa to show them one big pile of approvals to accept
the binding arbitration, signed by all 634 plaintiffs. When Mr Potter sees all those approvals and the
PG&E documents that Erin got from the guy in the bar, he can’t believe his eyes. “How did you do
that?”, he asks her.
 Erin Brockovich – Detailed Film Synopsis

The next scene shows Erin driving out to Hinkley to see Donna Jensen. George is with her;
Erin tells him that she wants him to know what he helped to do. Erin brings Donna the good news:
The judge “is gonna make them pay 333 million dollars! He’s gonna make them give five million of
that to your family.” When Donna hears that she breaks out in tears and hugs Erin.

Back in the office, Ed hands a check to Erin, telling her that “the figure is not exactly what we
discussed. It was not appropriate.” Erin reacts in her typical way: She gets very angry and tells Ed that
she worked so hard, so he should reward her accordingly. However, she stops talking when she sees
that the figure on the check is two million dollars instead of one million, as agreed. Ed says, “I
thought the figure was not appropriate, so I increased it. Do they teach beauty queens how to
apologize? Because you suck at it.”

The End