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.
Bethel is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,968 at the 2000 census. The town includes the locations of Bethel-Gilead, East Bethel, Lilliesville, Olympus (now called Lympus), and West Bethel. Bethel is best known for being the source of Bethel White granite which has been used to build Union Station (Washington, DC) and the National Museum of Natural History. Bethel was the first town created by the independent Republic of Vermont in 1779 and was named after the biblical village of Bethel.