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.
Greenville is the seat of Greenville County, in upstate South Carolina, United States. One of the principal cities of the Greenville-Mauldin-Easley Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), it had a population of 56,006 at the 2000 census. The metropolitan area had an estimated population of 601,986 in 2006. Greenville is the largest city of the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson Combined Statistical Area (CSA) which in 2006 had an estimated population of 1,203,795. The CSA, an 8-county region of northwestern South Carolina, is known as "The Upstate. " Greenville is located approximately halfway between Atlanta, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina along Interstate 85, and its metropolitan area also includes Interstates 185 and 385.