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.
Briceville is an unincorporated community in Anderson County, Tennessee. It is included in the Knoxville, Tennessee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The community is named for railroad tycoon and one-term Democratic U.S. Senator Calvin S. Brice of Ohio, who was instrumental in bringing railroad service to the town. The Briceville zip code, 37710, which also includes a large remote mountain area west of the community, had a population of 1,441 as of the 2000 U.S. Census. Briceville's economy was historically based on coal mining. Briceville played an important role in three major late-19th and early-20th century incidents related to the region's coal mining activies: the Coal Creek War in 1891, the Fraterville Mine disaster of 1902, and the Cross Mountain Mine disaster of 1911.