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.
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan region. The Greater Orlando metropolitan area has a population of 2,054,574 while the city-proper population is 230,519 (July 2008 estimate) . It is the fifth largest city in Florida by population. It was incorporated on July 31, 1875, and became a city in 1885. Originally the center of a major citrus-growing region, Orlando is now an urban city with various industries. The area is a major tourist destination and is the home of the Universal Orlando Resort, and SeaWorld. Orlando is also about 21 miles Northeast of Lake Buena Vista, Florida, home of the Walt Disney World Resort. These attractions helped make Orlando the third most visited American city among travelers in the year 2007. Since the establishment of destination tourism in the 1970s, the local economy has diversified, and today the region is the center of operations for companies servicing Central Florida. Orlando is also home to the University of Central Florida, the largest university campus by student enrollment in the state of Florida and among the largest in the United States. In 2008, Orlando was listed as a "high sufficiency" world-city in the World Cities Study Group’s inventory by Loughborough University