Class Action: Tort Tale

The film Class Action is a piece that does not directly involve a tort tale, however the case portrayed in the movie could easily depicted as one. In order to convert this case into a tort tale, we have to have a brief overview of the events that occurred in the movie. To start, the defense attorney (Maggie Ward) for Argo was the daughter of the attorney who was representing the clients who were suing Argo (Jed Ward). According to the movie, a certain model and year of an Argo (Fictional car company) automobile would catch fire, if the metaphorical “stars aligned”. Finally, the defense attorney ended up helping her father win the case against Argo, proving that she was more interested helping the victims and bring about justice , rather than
getting a paycheck and becoming a partner in her firm. Now that we have the basic overview of the movie, we can go into more detail on tort tales, and morph the case into a successful tort tale.
Tort tales can be defined as court cases in which the details are extremely exaggerated, crucial information is usually overlooked, the victim and their lawyer are seen as “money hungry” and the actual victim involved in the case is left to face the opinions of the American public (usually negative) (Haltom & McCann, 2004). Now that we have a definition defining what “tort tales” consist of, we can venture into the four elements of a successful tort tale. The four elements are: personalization, dramatization, fragmentation, and normalization (Haltom & McCann, 2004). Personalization is a necessity of an effective tort tale because it makes the stories “hit home” with the public who hear about/ view the case (Haltom & McCann, 2004) and without this element, the public would not be able to relate it to their lives, thus being incapable of drawing much attention. Dramatization is an essential element because it adds a certain “juiciness” to the case and the story,
which we know the American people love from shows like Jersey Shore and Jerry Springer that involve a large amount of drama. Fragmentation is important due to the fact that that it breaks down the story for the people, normally leaving out important information about the victim and the case (Haltom & McCann, 2004). Without this element, the people who view the case could possibly side on the victim’s end of the story, which would make tort tales irrelevant. Finally, normalization is a needed element to tort tales because they attempt to make the story they are telling seem like they are an everyday event (Haltom & McCann, 2004). This puts the public in the mindset that the people who sue are “just looking for money” (Haltom & McCann) and this gets the people to turn against the victim, and even poke fun at their expense. Now that we have all of this information, we are ready to make Class Action into a tort tale, and we can read it below: “We have all either been involved in, witnessed, or heard of an incident in which a car accident seriously hurt people within the vehicle.
Blame can be always be placed on one side or the other, simply because we are humans, and humans make mistakes. In this case however, we see something different. We see the victims of accidents suing the Argo automobile company. Now who is the real victim? The plaintiffs are suing Argo for millions of dollars, while Argo used crash test simulators, tested the effectiveness of their airbags, and performed numerous tests on the safety and quality of their vehicles, WITH NO PROBLEMS. All of this within itself costs millions, but the people suing believe their injuries were not their fault. WHAT A JOKE. If we look into depth at the model of the vehicle the plaintiffs are arguing caused their injury, we see that only around three hundred vehicles caught fire. Argo produced thousands of the exact same model vehicle, and more than seventy-five percent were absolutely fine. Also, the lawyer who was representing Argo was the daughter of the lawyer representing the plaintiffs! Am I the only one who sees a conflict of interest here? She helped her father win the case for crying out loud! This tells me that one party is clearly to blame for the accidents and that is the plaintiffs. Jed Ward and his clients are only suing Argo in order to receive a handout. Some people truly do try to take advantage of our legal system (need I bring up the McDonald’s
Hot Coffee case again?) and this is obviously what is going on here and is an epidemic in our country, do not let these free loaders and greedy lawyers tell you otherwise.” Here we see all of the elements that make an effective tort tale. Personalization is in this tort tale in the very first sentence. I use the fact that almost everyone has been in or knows someone who has been in a car accident, and did not sue the company who built the vehicle. I use the element of dramatization in this tort tale when I mention how the plaintiffs are suing for millions and how Argo made thousands vehicles and only three hundred caught on fire. Fragmentation is used because I leave out many important details from the movie that would go against my tort tale. For example, I could have mentioned how one engineer ran a test that proved that the vehicle would catch fire when the left turn signal was down. Instead, I mentioned that many tests have were performed on the vehicle, and nothing went wrong. I also mentioned how Maggie was Jed’s daughter and she ended up helping him out, and how this was a conflict of interest, but I did not mention how she did not like her father and how her interests were in the pursuit of justice. Normalization is used when I mention how suing is an epidemic in America, as I make it seem like some people sue “at the drop of a hat” (Haltom & McCann, 2004). Overall, I believe that people would be on my side of the tort tale if this were to be seen in a newspaper. I am clearly not a tort reformer, nor a journalist, but creating the tort tale was not extremely difficult and I can see why media uses them. I used all of the needed elements of a newsworthy story in my tort tale, and for a rookie to creating tort tales, I believe I did a good job of drawing the reader, providing just enough information to add some drama and get the people on my side, and relating the story to the viewer’s own lives.