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.
Diggins is a village in Webster County, Missouri, United States. The population was 298 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area. The small community, which once had two grocery stores, two gas stations, a feed mill and a bank until the Great Depression, is located halfway between Fordland and Seymour on U.S. 60. Diggins has its own water and sewer system for residents inside its city limits. Diggins is known best to the outside world as the hometown of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart. At the community's 100-year centennial celebration in 1987, Walton visited Diggins. Today, Diggins has a post office and a few businesses. The village's gathering place is the Diggins Community Building, a facility that also includes a park and playground. State highways O and NN meet U.S. 60 in Diggins, and the rural area surrounding the community has grown at a rapid rate over the past twenty years.