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.
Elk Grove Village is a municipality located in northeastern Illinois adjacent to O'Hare International Airport and the City of Chicago. Elk Grove Village encompasses 10.9 square miles (28 km) in land area with 10.5 square miles (27 km) located in Cook County and 0.4 square miles (1.0 km) located in DuPage County, Illinois. The population was 34,727 at the 2000 census. As the name suggests, Elk Grove Village is home to a small herd of elk kept in a grove at the eastern edge of the Busse Woods forest preserve. However, elk are not native to the area, and the name "Elk Grove" actually comes from a mispronunciation of the Native American name for the place. Furthermore, the original elk herd was brought from Montana by an early resident, Busse, in the 1920s.