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.
Cypress (the same as Cypress-Fairbanks, or Cy-Fair) is an unincorporated area of Harris County, Texas, United States located completely inside the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the City of Houston. The Cypress area is located along U.S. Highway 290 (Northwest Freeway) twenty miles (32 km) northwest of Downtown Houston. Large scale residential and commercial development beginning in the 1980s transformed the once rural area into one of the Houston area's largest suburban communities. Cypress is the home of Eva Guzman, the first Hispanic female to have served on the Texas Supreme Court. She is a candidate in the March 2, 2010, Republican primary election.