Mass tort lawsuits are different from other personal injury lawsuits in numerous ways. However, there are at least two significant primary distinctions that that clearly set mass torts apart.
First, mass torts involve the hundreds or even thousands of individual claims that have all been harmed by the same product or device. Whereas, personal injury lawsuits typically involve one plaintiff, one family, or one small distinct group who suffered harm on typically one single event.
Secondly, even though mass tort lawsuits involve hundreds or even thousands of plaintiffs, the underlying facts and issues in dispute are similar (often identical) in all of the many cases.
This is especially true in pharmaceutical mass tort lawsuits where one bad drug causes cancer in hundreds or even thousands of people.
In a scenario like, this while each plaintiff has his or her own individual case, the real issue in dispute is whether or not the drug taken by the group of plaintiffs actually causes cancer.