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.
Kellogg is a city in the Silver Valley of Shoshone County, Idaho, United States, in the Idaho Panhandle region. The city lies near the Coeur d'Alene National Forest and about 36 miles (58 km) east-southeast of Coeur d'Alene along Interstate 90. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 2,395, down by nearly a third from its population in 1980. Kellogg is named after a prospector named Noah Kellogg. Legend has it that his donkey wandered off during the morning of September 4, 1885; Kellogg found the animal at a large outcropping of galena, which became the site of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mines; those mines led to the founding of Kellogg, a city where a local sign reads "This is the town founded by a jackass and inhabited by his descendants. " Noah Kellogg is buried in the city's cemetery. After nearly a century of bustling activity in the mines, including a history of disputes between union miners and mine owners, the Bunker Hill Mine (& smelter) closed in 1981, leaving thousands out of work, a history of lead contamination, and other mines reduced operations as well. Since the mines have closed Kellogg is moving more towards a resort town as development of new condos, hotels, restaurants, shops, a water park and a new golf course continues at the base of the Silver Mountain Gondola. Kellogg was recently featured in the New York Times travel section as an up and coming ski resort. The Silver Mountain Resort is a ski resort which includes Kellogg Peak (6300 ft/1920 m) and Wardner Peak (6200 ft/1890 m) and is accessed by taking the world's longest single-cabin gondola 3.1 miles from the town of Kellogg to the lodge at Kellogg Mountain.