The show couldn't have been timed better for my 1L Torts students' study of public nuisance, which we just completed. The real-life events of Toxic Town are sometimes called "the British 'Erin Brockovich.'" The facts are even more like the case of water contamination in Woburn, Mass., which was the subject of A Civil Action, though Toxic Town makes much of the cadmium in circulating dust as key to opening up the case.
In the Toxic Town matter, the town of Corby had its water supply poisoned by a defunct steelworks in East Midlands, England, resulting in a cluster of birth defects in the 1980s and 1990s. The courts ultimately ruled in favor of complainants for public nuisance against the local government, which was willfully sloppy in trying to rehabilitate the old steelworks and was not forthcoming with information when challenged. The parties settled confidentially on appeal in 2010. There's more about the true story at Esquire, Time, and BBC.
I don't know enough about British tort law to assess the portrayal of the legal case in Toxic Town. There are some compelling points that suggest the series as a worthwhile study in comparative law. The plaintiff solicitors and barristers refer to a standard of "knowing negligence," which sounds to me closer to recklessness than to negligence in American tort law. The plaintiffs' expert says he must testify with 95% certainty, an extraordinary bar. That requirement causes the plaintiff lawyers to trim their client class. In the court proceedings, a bench trial in the British system, there is testimony that would be excluded for fear of prejudice in an American jury trial. The miniseries also makes much of political tensions within the defendant town council, including a cover-up, implicating the freedom of information. I would welcome an opportunity to study further the similarities and differences here between U.S. and UK law.
The all-star cast of four-episode Toxic Town includes former Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker as the lead "Eric Brockovich" character, based on real-life mother-plaintiff Susan McIntyre. My beloved Robert Carlyle, Trainspotting's "Begbie," plays a town councilor with a conscience. The immediately recognizable Rory Kinnear plays the Civil-Action-Travolta-like plaintiff lawyer, Des Collins. Another favorite actor of mine, Michael Socha—Being Human (UK), and a co-alum with Carlyle of Once Upon a Time—plays the Whittaker character's unreliable love interest.
