A Civil Action is a 1995 non-fiction book by Jonathan Harr about a water contamination case in Woburn, Massachusetts, in the 1980s.

A 1998 film of the same name, starring John Travolta as plaintiff's lawyer Jan Schlichtmann and Robert Duvall as Beatrice Foods attorney Jerome Facher, was based on the book.

He spends lavishly as he had in his prior lawsuits, but the length of the discovery process and trial stretch all of their assets to their limit.

However, due to the lawsuits brought forward by the Environmental Protection Agency, W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods are eventually forced to pay for the largest chemical cleanup in the history of the Northeastern United States at that time, which cost about $68 million.

The New York Times wrote that "Harr does not overdramatize individual scenes, but he does depict a world containing three types of people: innocent victims, lonely crusaders and the malignant pawns of the corporate state.