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.
Helena is the capital city of the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Lewis and Clark County. The population was 25,780 at the 2000 census, and had been estimated to rise to 29,351 by 2008. The local daily newspaper is the Independent Record. The local weekly (and independent) newspaper is the Queen City News. The Helena Brewers minor league baseball team call the city home. The city is served by Helena Regional Airport. Helena is the principal city of the Helena Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Lewis and Clark and Jefferson counties; its population was estimated at 72,180 on July 1, 2008.