The Erin Brockovich lawsuit was Anderson v. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., a case filed on behalf of roughly 650 residents of Hinkley, California, who alleged that PG&E had contaminated their groundwater with hexavalent chromium and hidden the danger for decades. It ended in 1996 with a $333 million settlement, the largest direct-action payout in United States history at that time. Brockovich, a file clerk with no formal legal training, built the factual case that made the win possible.
What PG&E Did in Hinkley
PG&E ran a natural gas compressor station about two miles southeast of Hinkley, a small community in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County. Between 1952 and 1966, the station used hexavalent chromium, also called chromium-6, to prevent corrosion in its cooling towers. The chemical itself was standard for the industry. What PG&E did with the wastewater was not. The company discharged chromium-laced fluid into unlined ponds, and it seeped through the soil into the aquifer that Hinkley families drew on for drinking water and irrigation.1Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. PG&E Hinkley Chromium Cleanup
By the time scientists mapped the contamination plume, it stretched at least eight miles long and two miles wide, sitting directly beneath the residential area where families had lived for years.2U.S. Geological Survey. Results of Hexavalent Chromium Background Study in Hinkley, California
How Erin Brockovich Found the Case
Brockovich worked as a file clerk at Masry & Vititoe, a small law firm in Thousand Oaks, California. While organizing real estate documents tied to PG&E property transactions near Hinkley, she noticed medical records mixed in with the land files. The oddity was enough to send her out to the town with questions.
Knocking on doors in Hinkley, she found a community full of people dealing with unexplained cancers, chronic nosebleeds, miscarriages, and other health problems. Many said PG&E representatives had assured them the chromium in their water was a harmless, naturally occurring substance. Her fieldwork tied the health complaints back to the compressor station’s discharge history and gave attorney Ed Masry the factual backbone to file suit as Anderson v. Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
The Legal Claims Against PG&E
The plaintiffs built the case on three overlapping theories. The first was ordinary negligence: PG&E failed to exercise reasonable care in disposing of industrial waste, and poisoned groundwater was the foreseeable result. The second was strict liability for abnormally dangerous activities, which holds a company responsible for harm regardless of how careful it was. Dumping a known carcinogen into unlined ponds next to a residential water supply fit that description. The third was nuisance: the contamination interfered with residents’ use and enjoyment of their own property, and the land itself lost much of its value.
The most damaging allegation was fraudulent concealment. The legal team presented evidence that PG&E had known about the contamination for decades and deliberately kept residents in the dark. Internal documents suggested that when residents asked about their water, PG&E representatives described the chromium as a safe, naturally occurring mineral rather than a toxic industrial byproduct. That concealment mattered legally because it prevented families from protecting themselves or seeking medical help when it might still have made a difference.
The science behind the health claims was contested at the time. Hexavalent chromium was already recognized as a carcinogen when inhaled, but limited human data existed on ingestion. The body partially neutralizes ingested chromium-6 in the gut, but a portion reaches internal tissues, triggers oxidative stress, and causes DNA damage. A 2008 National Toxicology Program study later confirmed that ingested chromium-6 caused cancer in laboratory animals, strengthening the scientific case the Hinkley plaintiffs had already made. In August 2024, the EPA finalized an updated toxicological review covering both inhalation and oral exposure.3Environmental Protection Agency. IRIS Toxicological Review of Hexavalent Chromium
The Arbitration and the $333 Million Settlement
Instead of going to a jury, both sides agreed to resolve the case through private, binding arbitration. A panel of retired judges reviewed the scientific evidence and testimony in stages. Over two years, the panel awarded $121 million to the first 39 plaintiffs whose cases were heard. Under the arbitration agreement, PG&E faced a maximum exposure of $400 million.
After seeing where the early awards were heading, PG&E chose to settle the remaining claims rather than risk the full cap. In July 1996, the company agreed to pay $333 million to cover all plaintiffs. Because the arbitration was binding, neither side could appeal.
How the Settlement Was Divided
The $333 million did not all reach the Hinkley families. Under the fee agreement with Masry & Vititoe and two partner firms, the attorneys received 40 percent, roughly $133 million. Another $10 million was deducted for litigation expenses, covering expert witnesses, scientific testing, and other costs accumulated over years of complex proceedings. That left approximately $190 million to divide among the plaintiffs.
Individual payouts varied widely depending on the severity of each person’s health problems and how long they had lived in the contamination zone. Some residents received hundreds of thousands of dollars. Others got much less and felt the amounts did not come close to covering their medical bills and lost property value. Brockovich herself received a $2 million bonus from the firm for her work. The uneven distribution and long delays in payment created tension within the community, with some plaintiffs waiting months or even years for their checks.
What Happened to Hinkley After the Case
The settlement did not save the town. In the years that followed, PG&E began buying up residential properties as the contamination plume continued to spread. As the company acquired and demolished homes, the community emptied out. Of the roughly 2,000 people who once lived there, only 300 to 400 chose to stay. By 2016, the New York Times described Hinkley as having “slowly become a ghost town.”
Cleanup of the aquifer has continued for decades under orders from the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. As of early 2025, PG&E had removed roughly 89 percent of the chromium mass from the groundwater, and all domestic wells met safe drinking water standards.4Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. Item 5 PGE Annual Update
Regulatory and Cultural Legacy
One lasting consequence of the case was pressure on regulators to set enforceable limits for hexavalent chromium in drinking water. The EPA regulates total chromium at 100 parts per billion but has never established a separate standard for the more dangerous hexavalent form.5National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Hexavalent Chromium California adopted a state limit of 10 parts per billion in 2014. A court struck it down in 2017 on procedural grounds, and regulators went through the rulemaking process again to re-establish the same 10 parts per billion limit, effective October 1, 2024.6State Water Resources Control Board. Hexavalent Chromium MCL (SWRCB-DDW-21-003) No other state has a comparable standard.
In 2000, director Steven Soderbergh released “Erin Brockovich,” with Julia Roberts in the title role and Albert Finney as Ed Masry. Roberts won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film took liberties with the timeline and certain details, but its core narrative held: an untrained legal worker with persistence and empathy uncovered what regulators had missed. It turned hexavalent chromium into a household term and reshaped public expectation about holding corporations financially accountable for contaminating communities.