A mass tort is a legal action taken in the aftermath of a wrongful act that causes damage to many people. A mass tort is like a class action in that it includes multiple people who have been harmed by a negligent party. There are, however, variations in how plaintiffs are compensated for their losses.
Mass Torts Lawsuit
A mass tort case is a legal action taken against an accused or firm who has harmed many people. Medical device injuries, prescription drug injuries, product liability injuries, and toxic contamination are the four major types of mass tort lawsuits.
- Mass Accidents
- Toxic Torts
Mass Accident
It is a tortious misconduct that affects large number of persons in similar ways. The most familiar torts of this type arise from localized disasters involving a particular physical structure.
Example:
A Hotel fire
Mass accidents exhibit numerosity, often geographic dispersion and injury patterns. The physical impairments produced by a hotel file, or an airplane crash is burns, broken bones, or death. The absence of temporal dispersion makes mass accidents simply a more wide-ranging variation on the chain of events.
Toxic Torts
It is a tortious misconduct involving toxic substances said to produce latent disease.
Example:
Residents near an industrial facility
They might sue in tort based upon their exposure to a toxic chemical. The residents claim may well entail some manner of present-day harm. But an even more challenging component of their claims likely will center on allegations of latent disease. Cancer is the classic example of a latent disease.
What Makes Mass Tort Litigation Different From All Other Litigations?
It is a single event with many victims. Mass tort is large. There are many plaintiffs involved, number of parties involved are often a challenge in themselves especially when parties are approaching the issue from different perspectives. Because it involves manufacturers, distributors, pharmaceutical case doctors, multiple jurisdictions and courts, scope of discovery, sheer size, expense, time, multiplicity of counsel and management challenges.
Causation
- Plaintiff must connect their injury to defendant’s conduct sufficiently to justify relief.
- Potential Issues to raise are Product Identification or Tracing, Attenuated or remote casual chain, Concurrent alleged wrongdoing, multiple casual factors of which defendant’s conduct is only one, Intervening wrongdoing by others, Opportunity for plaintiffs to mitigate damages and Proof issues.
What Do Mass Tort Attorney Do?
A mass tort attorney is competent at presenting litigation in instances where numerous clients have been injured because of the negligence of another party. Mass tort cases are frequently brought against big corporations such as airline companies, railroads, pharmaceutical firms, and manufacturers.
Common Types of Mass Tort Cases
- Dangerous Products
- Exposure to Toxic Substances
- Large-Scale Catastrophes
- Defective Drugs and Medical Devices
- Natural Disasters