Practice Area
Mass Torts
Representing individual Californians in coordinated proceedings and large-scale tort litigation — wildfire, defective-product, environmental, and pharmaceutical matters that affect hundreds or thousands of people.
Mass-tort litigation involves a large number of individual claimants whose separate cases are coordinated for efficiency — for example, residents harmed by a single wildfire, patients injured by a defective product or medication, communities exposed to environmental contamination, or workers exposed to harmful substances over time. Each claimant generally has an individual claim with individual damages; the cases are coordinated so common questions can be litigated once rather than thousands of times. The firm represents individual claimants in these proceedings, often in coordination with other firms that share leadership responsibilities.
What Mass Torts Are — and Are Not
A mass tort is not the same as a class action. In a class action, one named plaintiff represents a class of similarly situated people and the case resolves with a single judgment or settlement applied across the class. In a mass tort, by contrast, each claimant has their own individual case with their own facts, damages, and ultimately their own recovery; the cases are merely coordinated to handle common questions efficiently.
In California, mass torts are commonly coordinated as a Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding (JCCP) under Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 404 et seq. when many cases share common questions of fact. Federal mass torts are coordinated as Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) under 28 U.S.C. § 1407. Whether a particular matter is a JCCP, an MDL, both, or neither depends on where cases are filed and the court's coordination decisions.
Categories the Firm May Handle
Mass-tort engagements the firm may take include, in general terms:
- Wildfire and disaster matters — coordinated proceedings arising out of a single catastrophic event with many affected residents and businesses
- Defective-product and pharmaceutical matters — products and medications that have caused similar injuries across many users
- Environmental contamination matters — groundwater, soil, or air contamination affecting a defined community
- Toxic-exposure matters — workplace or consumer exposure to harmful substances over time
Whether a particular matter is one the firm can accept depends on the facts, the procedural posture, the lead-counsel structure of any existing coordinated proceeding, and conflicts analysis.
How Representation Works
For an individual claimant, representation in a mass tort looks similar to representation in a single-plaintiff personal- injury case at the front end:
- Initial consultation to understand the facts and the injuries.
- Engagement letter and conflicts check.
- Investigation, medical-record collection, and exposure or causation documentation.
- Filing in the appropriate forum — often joining an existing JCCP or MDL.
- Coordinated discovery and motion practice on common issues, run by leadership counsel for the proceeding.
- Individual case-specific discovery, settlement negotiation, and resolution.
Mass-tort proceedings tend to take several years from filing to resolution. Patience and good record-keeping matter more here than in most other litigation.
California Deadlines
The same statute-of-limitations and government-claim rules described in the personal-injury page apply to most mass-tort claims. Deadlines may be tolled or modified by the procedural posture of an existing coordinated proceeding, by class-action tolling, or by a defendant's bankruptcy. Because deadlines are strict and the rules are fact-specific, contact the firm promptly rather than waiting to see how a coordinated proceeding develops.
What to Bring to the Consultation
- A timeline of the events or exposure (dates, locations, products, employers)
- Medical records or a list of treating providers
- Photographs, receipts, or other evidence of damages
- Any prior communications about the matter (insurance, government agencies, other firms)
- Any class-notice or coordinated-proceeding mailings you have received
Fees
Mass-tort matters are typically handled on a contingency fee under a written engagement letter, generally consistent with how the firm handles individual personal-injury cases. The exact percentage and the treatment of costs are set out in the engagement letter, and may reflect leadership-counsel cost-sharing structures common in coordinated proceedings.
More on the blog
Background on California's two-year personal-injury filing deadline, the six-month government-claims deadline, comparative fault, and similar fundamentals that also apply to mass-tort claims — covered on the firm's blog.
Read mass torts articles