A Civil Action (1998)

Dan Hedaya: John Riley

Photos 

Quotes 

• John Riley : [during his deposition in Jan's office]  I started working for my father sweeping the beam house floors for my father which he swept for his father when he was seven years old which my boys swept when they were seven years old...

  Jan Schlichtmann : [interrupts him]  Please answer the question I asked and not one I didn't. Silicon and trichloroethylene mixed together are used to waterproof leather, are they not?

  John Riley : [pours a glass of water on the conference table] 

  Jan Schlichtmann : Let the record show the witness has emptied a glass of water on the table. Mr. Riley, what do you intend to say by pouring a glass of water on my conference table?

  John Riley : This is how silicon is applied to leather to waterproof it. I'm answering your question.

  Jan Schlichtmann : It's poured on. Some of it must spill off on to the floor, like the water spilling off the conference table and on to my rug. That's the part I'm interested in. How was the silicon and trichlorethylene cleaned up?

  John Riley : We never used TCE.

  Jan Schlichtmann : "TCE"? I didn't say "TCE". I said "trichlorethylene". You said "TCE", as it commonly known to those who use it. Mr. Riley, do you mind if we check your purchase orders, receipts, ect?

  John Riley : Be my guest. We have those records going back three years. Everything else, we dumped.

• Jan Schlichtmann : Experts have testified in this court that your land, your fifteen acres is the most grotesquely polluted land in all of New England and you have no idea how it got that way?

  John Riley : No.

  Jan Schlichtmann : Does it upset you to learn that?

  John Riley : Very much so.

  Jan Schlichtmann : Why?

  John Riley : My factory is the oldest surviving business in Woburn, when the other tanners moved out, I stayed even though that was a very big financial burden. I stay because Woburn is my home that land has been in my family for three generations. That land to me is "hallow ground," so if you asked me if someone came onto that and desecrated it, a land that a part of a town that I love my answer to your question is "yes".