***SPOILERS*** The film "Class Action" pits San Francisco activist lawyer for the down trodden and helpless Jed Tucker Ward, Gene Hackman, against his no nonsense and bull headed daughter Maggie, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonoi, in a winner take all civil case against a giant car manufacture Argon Motors. It's Argon Motors who's 1985 model station wagons are the cause of some 130 accident one, the one which Jed takes up, had two persons killed and the driver left crippled. This father and daughter conflict in the courtroom results in Jed's wife Estella, Joanna Marlin, collapsing in the courthouse from a fatal heart attack from the stress that it caused her. Estella begged Maggie not to take the case for the car manufacture against her father. It was by Maggie taking it up that caused her mom's weak heart to stop beating.
In the courtroom sparks flew with Maggie and her defense team using every dirty and underhanded tactic to win that case. Even going so far as to to humiliate the victim of the crash, who lost his both wife and infant daughter as well as legs, as well as the engineer of the "death" station wagon the retired from the business but now running a bunny farm Mr. Pavel, Jan Rubes. Parvel who's memory, in not being able to remember his telephone number or birth date,was put in question who felt the station wagon was a death trap. It was Pavel who wrote in his notes that the car was a deathtrap to anyone driving it but as the defense, by destroying them, showed the notes he wrote about it had mysteriously ended up either missing or misplaced!
Just as it looked like curtains for Jed Ward's case an important witness was brought in a professional bean counter Mr. Patricola, Ken Grantham, who broke the case wide open in Jed Ward's favor.The mysterious Mr. Patricola proved what Jed Ward wasn't able to do in showing that the car was too dangerous to be driven. That as well as the reason for the destruction of Mr. Pavel's notes which brought the roof down on Argon Motors! And it was non other Maggie Ward who at first did everything to prevent her father Jed from winning the case that made that all possible! The film was obviously based on the landmark Ralph Nader book "Unsafe at any Speed" published in 1966 about the lack of car safety in the automobile industry and how it resulted in the thousands of deaths and injuries that could have so easily been avoided. In the movie like in real life it was a minor fault in the car that would have caused a few hundred dollars to correct that was not addressed that caused the car company in question, Argon Moters, to almost go bankrupt in the 100 million damage suit that was ruled, by a jury, against it!
In the courtroom sparks flew with Maggie and her defense team using every dirty and underhanded tactic to win that case. Even going so far as to to humiliate the victim of the crash, who lost his both wife and infant daughter as well as legs, as well as the engineer of the "death" station wagon the retired from the business but now running a bunny farm Mr. Pavel, Jan Rubes. Parvel who's memory, in not being able to remember his telephone number or birth date,was put in question who felt the station wagon was a death trap. It was Pavel who wrote in his notes that the car was a deathtrap to anyone driving it but as the defense, by destroying them, showed the notes he wrote about it had mysteriously ended up either missing or misplaced!
Just as it looked like curtains for Jed Ward's case an important witness was brought in a professional bean counter Mr. Patricola, Ken Grantham, who broke the case wide open in Jed Ward's favor.The mysterious Mr. Patricola proved what Jed Ward wasn't able to do in showing that the car was too dangerous to be driven. That as well as the reason for the destruction of Mr. Pavel's notes which brought the roof down on Argon Motors! And it was non other Maggie Ward who at first did everything to prevent her father Jed from winning the case that made that all possible! The film was obviously based on the landmark Ralph Nader book "Unsafe at any Speed" published in 1966 about the lack of car safety in the automobile industry and how it resulted in the thousands of deaths and injuries that could have so easily been avoided. In the movie like in real life it was a minor fault in the car that would have caused a few hundred dollars to correct that was not addressed that caused the car company in question, Argon Moters, to almost go bankrupt in the 100 million damage suit that was ruled, by a jury, against it!