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.
Reading is a town situated in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, some 10 miles (16 km) north of central Boston. The population was 23,708 at the 2000 census. The name of the town is pronounced red-ing rather than reed-ing.