A mass tort is a civil action involving numerous plaintiffs against one or a few corporate defendants. The tort may involve, for example, personal injuries suffered by numerous plaintiffs as a result of a defective product, or a mass disaster in which there were many injured persons, such as an airplane crash, or exposure of a large group of people to toxic chemicals or pharmaceuticals.
Emeryville is a small city located in Alameda County, California, in the United States. It is located in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, extending to the shore of San Francisco Bay. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and Silicon Valley has been a catalyst for recent economic growth. It is home to Pixar Animation Studios and Jamba Juice. In addition, several well known biotech and software companies have made their home in Emeryville: Pixar Studios, Electronic Arts' Maxis Software division, LeapFrog, Sendmail, MobiTV, and Bayer, Novartis (formerly Chiron before April 2006). The population was 9,727 at the 2008 census.