A mass tort is a civil action involving numerous plaintiffs against one or a few defendants in state or federal court. The lawsuits arise out of the defendants causing numerous injuries through the same or similar act of harm (e.g. a prescription drug, a medical device, a defective product, a train accident, a plane crash, pollution, or a construction disaster).

 

• Law firms sometimes use mass media to reach potential plaintiffs.

• The main categories of mass torts include:

• Medical device injuries

• Prescription drug injuries

• Product liability injuries

• Toxic contamination

 
A mass tort is a type of litigation that consists of a large number of individual plaintiffs that allege injuries related to a single incident (for example, a plane crash) or a specific type of allegedly defective or dangerous product (for example, alleged harms caused by a pharmaceutical product). Mass torts are similar to class actions in that these types of cases encompass large numbers of potential plaintiffs. However, due to critical differences between the individual plaintiffs and the types of damages that they allegedly received, these types of cases cannot be handled as a class action; they must be resolved individually. The plaintiffs' trial bar tries to generate as many claims as possible in a mass tort to pressure defendant companies to try to settle, whether or not the defendant is actually responsible.

In U.S. federal courts, mass tort claims are often consolidated as multidistrict litigation. In some cases, mass torts are addressed through a class action.