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.
Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about 15 miles north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 29,393 at the 2008 census. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area.