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.
Thomson is a village along Illinois Route 84 near the Mississippi River in Carroll County, Illinois, United States. The population was 559 at the 2000 census. Just north of the village is the Thomson Correctional Center, a mostly-unused maximum security state prison. Thomson is known for watermelons, and it has the nickname "Melon Capital of the World."