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.
Eldon is a city in Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 998 at the 2000 census. Eldon is the site of the small Carpenter Gothic style house that has come to be known as the American Gothic House because Grant Wood used it for the background in his famous 1930 painting American Gothic. Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold (who was born in nearby Ottumwa) opened Roseanne and Tom's Big Food Diner, specializing in loosemeat sandwiches (similar to the specialty of the Lanford Lunch Box, which was owned by the Connor family on the ABC sitcom Roseanne), in Eldon. The restaurant was short-lived, operating from March 13, 1993, until 1995. (The couple divorced in 1994.)