A Civil Action is a 1995 nonfiction book by Jonathan Harr about a case of water pollution in Woburn, Massachusetts, in the 1980s. It won the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction. A federal civil case involves a legal dispute between two or more parties. A civil action begins when one of the parties to a dispute files a lawsuit and pays a filing fee required by law.
The plaintiff who is unable to pay the fee can submit a request to proceed in forma pauperis. If the request is granted, the fee is waived. Learn about civil cases: the standard of proof used by the court, the common types of civil cases that arise, and the stages of a civil case. Travolta plays Jan Schlichtmann, the director of a small personal injury law firm that deals with cases they believe they can win.
