What Was the PG&E Lawsuit Erin Brockovich Helped Win?

The PG&E lawsuit that Erin Brockovich helped win was Anderson et al. v. Pacific Gas & Electric, a 1993 direct-action case filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court by roughly 650 residents of Hinkley, California, who alleged that PG&E had poisoned their groundwater with hexavalent chromium. The case was resolved through binding arbitration and settled on July 2, 1996, for $333 million — then the largest payout in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history.¹²

What PG&E Did in Hinkley

PG&E’s Hinkley compressor station, which pumps natural gas along a pipeline, began operating in the Mojave Desert about two miles southeast of Hinkley in 1952. From 1952 to 1966, the company added hexavalent chromium (chromium-6) to its cooling tower water as an anticorrosion agent and, for most of that period, discharged the wastewater into unlined ponds. It seeped into the aquifer below.³⁴ PG&E began treating the wastewater in 1964 and switched to a phosphate-based inhibitor in 1966.

By the time remediation began in 1992, the contamination had spread into a groundwater plume at least eight miles long and two miles wide, with concentrations reaching 80 parts per billion in some areas during the 1990s.⁴⁵ Hinkley residents drew their water from private wells and reported nosebleeds, chronic coughs, rashes, joint pain, miscarriages, and elevated rates of cancer.⁶

How Brockovich Uncovered the Case

In 1993, Erin Brockovich was a single mother working as a legal clerk at Masry & Vititoe, a small firm based in Westlake Village, California. She noticed medical records mixed in with a real estate file involving Hinkley properties and PG&E, wondered why health records would appear in a property dispute, and began asking questions in the community.⁶

Brockovich went door to door in Hinkley, cataloging residents’ illnesses and connecting them to the chromium-6 PG&E had been dumping for decades. She later recalled that the more questions she asked, “the more I started to piece the puzzle together.”⁶ Her fieldwork built the factual foundation of the lawsuit. Ed Masry, the firm’s lead partner, later called her the “real driver behind the case.”⁷

How the Case Was Won

Masry & Vititoe was a 12-attorney firm when it took on PG&E. Masry dedicated about 25 of his 42 employees full-time to the case within months of filing and poured his life savings into it. When his own resources ran out, he brought in two larger partners: Tom Girardi of Girardi and Keese and Walter Lack of Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack.⁷

The case never went to a traditional trial. It was steered into binding arbitration before a panel of retired judges, who over two years heard testimony from residents and from scientific experts on both sides of a central question: whether chromium-6 in drinking water could cause cancer and other diseases in humans. The link between inhaled chromium-6 and cancer was already well established, but PG&E’s lawyers argued that the evidence for harm from ingestion was weak. The company’s deputy general counsel, Robert Bordon, called the plaintiffs’ evidence “junk science.”²

The arbitrators awarded the first 39 plaintiffs $121 million. Under the arbitration agreement, PG&E faced exposure of up to $400 million if the remaining cases followed the same pattern. On July 2, 1996, PG&E settled for $333 million to cover all 650 plaintiffs.²

Where the Settlement Money Went

The three law firms collectively took 40 percent of the settlement — roughly $133.6 million — in contingency fees, plus another $10 million in expenses that were never itemized publicly.⁸ Brockovich received a $2 million bonus, reportedly only after threatening legal action against the firm; the payment came six months after the settlement closed.¹

The fees for children’s claims drew particular scrutiny. California law generally limits attorneys’ fees in minors’ settlements to 25 percent and typically requires approval by a Superior Court judge. The arbitrators allowed the attorneys to charge 33.3 percent for the roughly 100 children involved, and minors who turned 18 during 1996 were charged the full 40 percent. A Bakersfield attorney, Michael Dolan, who had been consulted about potential malpractice claims, questioned whether the higher fees for minors had received the required judicial approval. The Hinkley attorneys filed two lawsuits against Dolan and dropped both within months. In April 1999, they issued refund checks to affected teenagers, attributing the overcharges to “computer errors.”⁹

The Science That Was Still Being Fought

At the time of the settlement, chromium-6 was classified as a known carcinogen when inhaled but not when swallowed. PG&E funded the consulting firm ChemRisk, led by Dennis Paustenbach, to produce a revised analysis of a 1987 Chinese study that had linked chromium-contaminated drinking water to stomach cancer. The revision concluded there was no such association and was published in an American journal without disclosing PG&E’s funding. The journal later retracted the article.¹⁰

In 2001, a California “blue-ribbon panel” concluded there was “no basis” for believing chromium-6 in water caused cancer; emails later revealed the report borrowed text from a review co-authored by Paustenbach and another industry-linked scientist, Deborah Proctor.¹⁰ In 2008, the National Toxicology Program published a study finding “clear evidence” that rodents consuming chromium-6 developed tumors in the mouth and intestines. Max Costa, an NYU professor of environmental medicine who served as an expert witness for the Hinkley residents, cited the research as confirming a cancer risk from ingestion.¹¹

California’s environmental health agency concluded in 2011 that chromium-6 in drinking water is a carcinogen. A 10 parts-per-billion state standard adopted in 2014 was struck down by a court over inadequate economic documentation, then re-adopted and took effect on October 1, 2024. California remains the only state with its own chromium-6 drinking water limit; the federal standard covers only total chromium, at 100 ppb.¹²¹³

What Happened to Hinkley After the Settlement

The settlement did not end the contamination. The chromium plume remains in the ground, and cleanup has now continued for more than three decades. By 2013, PG&E had spent a total of $800 million on lawsuit settlements, property purchases, water purification systems, and remediation combined.¹⁴

Starting in late 2010, PG&E extended buyout offers to 279 properties. By mid-2013, it had purchased 130 homes with another 44 sales pending. The buyouts were described as voluntary, offered at residents’ request, but the practical effect was the slow depopulation of the town. The U.S. Postal Service reported a drop of about 200 home deliveries in the five years leading up to 2013, and Hinkley’s only school closed as enrollment fell.¹⁴¹⁵ An estimated 300 to 400 residents remain as of the mid-2020s.⁶¹⁶

Cleanup is now overseen by the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board under Cleanup and Abatement Order No. R6V-2015-0068-A1. PG&E uses in-situ remediation zones, freshwater injection systems, and agricultural treatment units to reduce chromium levels in the aquifer.¹⁷ Monthly monitoring reports indicate the plume is contained south of Thompson Road and is not expanding, though concentrations still fluctuate. In 2024, one monitoring well and one domestic well showed readings that peaked at 21 ppb in July, more than double the new state standard. PG&E provided bottled water to affected households; by December 2024, the domestic well level had dropped to 7.8 ppb.¹⁸ The compressor station itself remains in operation.¹⁹

1
Center for Justice & Democracy. Environmental Cases
2
Los Angeles Times. PG&E Agrees to $333 Million Settlement
3
California State Water Resources Control Board. PG&E Hinkley Compressor Station FAQ
4
U.S. Geological Survey. Results of Hexavalent Chromium Background Study
5
National Center for Biotechnology Information. Groundwater Contamination and Health Risks
6
ABC News. Erin Brockovich and the Real Story of a Town, Decades Later
7
LA Business Journal. Interview With Edward L. Masry
8
The Guardian. Erin Brockovich and the Real Hinkley
9
Salon. The Real Erin Brockovich
10
Center for Public Integrity. How Industry Scientists Stalled Action on Carcinogen
11
CalMatters. California Water Standard for Chromium
12
California State Water Resources Control Board. Chromium-6 Drinking Water MCL
13
Association of State Drinking Water Administrators. California Adopts MCL for Hexavalent Chromium
14
San Bernardino Sun. Hinkley, a Town Thats Fading Away
15
Voice of America. Unhappy Ending for Erin Brockovich Town
16
Washington Post. Erin Brockovich Town Still Fears Dirty Water
17
Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. PG&E Hinkley Chromium Cleanup
18
Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. PG&E Hinkley Status of Actions
19
PG&E. Compressor Stations