California Mass Tort Lawyer

When a Drug, Device, or Product Hurts Thousands of People at Once

Most personal injury cases involve one person and one accident. Mass torts are different. A mass tort is what happens when a single product, drug, device, or environmental disaster injures large numbers of people across the country. Each person still has their own case, but the cases share key facts, scientific evidence, and corporate misconduct. A California mass tort lawyer is the person who builds and runs that kind of complex litigation on the plaintiff’s side.

KBK Lawyers has been part of major mass tort and class action work for decades. Brian Kabateck has held leadership positions in multidistrict litigation in California and across the country, and our team works closely with co-counsel firms across the plaintiffs’ bar when scale matters.

Mass Tort Cases We Are Actively Handling

Our team represents Californians in a range of active mass tort matters. Mass torts rotate as new science emerges and as existing cases settle; the practice areas below are our current focus. Follow the links to learn what your case is worth and how the process works in that specific matter.

  • Hair Relaxer Cancer Lawsuits — Uterine and ovarian cancer claims tied to chemical hair relaxers and straighteners.
  • Talc Cancer Lawsuits — Ovarian cancer and mesothelioma cases tied to talcum powder products.
  • Ozempic and GLP-1 Drug Lawsuits — Gastroparesis, ileus, and other side-effect claims tied to semaglutide and related drugs.
  • Roundup Cancer Lawsuits — Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cases tied to glyphosate herbicide exposure.
  • Paraquat Parkinson’s Lawsuits — Parkinson’s disease cases tied to paraquat herbicide exposure.
  • AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuits — PFAS-contaminated foam used by firefighters, the military, and at airports.
  • PFAS / Forever Chemicals — Environmental and personal-injury claims tied to PFAS exposure in water, soil, and consumer products.
  • Hernia Mesh Lawsuits — Defective surgical mesh claims involving migration, perforation, and chronic pain.
  • Bard PowerPort Lawsuits — Implanted port catheter fractures, migration, and infection.
  • Camp Lejeune Water Contamination — Federal claims for North Carolina exposure, available to California residents who lived or served there.
  • Paragard IUD Lawsuits — Copper IUD breakage and removal-injury claims.
  • Social Media Harm Lawsuits — Adolescent mental health, addiction, and self-harm cases tied to platform design.

If you do not see your case here, call us anyway. New mass torts consolidate every quarter, and our team monitors emerging litigation closely.

How a Mass Tort Is Different From a Class Action

People sometimes use these terms as if they mean the same thing. They do not. In a class action, one decision and one recovery covers everyone. In a mass tort, every injured person keeps an individual case with an individual recovery, but the cases are coordinated to share discovery and pretrial work. That structure usually delivers larger payouts per person than a class action would, because each case is valued on its own facts. A California mass tort lawyer’s job is to push your individual case forward inside that coordinated structure.

Why KBK Lawyers

Mass tort work requires firms with the staying power to litigate against the largest pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and chemical companies in the world. Brian Kabateck has spent his career doing exactly that. He is a past President of Consumer Attorneys of California and a past President of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles. He has been appointed to plaintiff steering and executive committees in major multidistrict litigation, and he is a frequent media voice when big consumer cases break. A California mass tort lawyer working at KBK Lawyers has the support of that experience on every file.

What You Can Recover

  • Past and future medical expenses
  • Lost wages and lost earning capacity
  • Pain, suffering, and emotional distress
  • Wrongful death damages for surviving family members
  • Punitive damages when a defendant’s conduct was especially reckless

What to Do If You Think You Have a Claim

  1. Save the drug bottle, device packaging, or product receipt if you still have it.
  2. Gather your medical records, including the diagnosis and the date you first connected the injury to the product.
  3. Write down what you remember about how the product was sold to you and any warnings (or missing warnings) you saw.
  4. Do not throw the device or product away — it is evidence.
  5. Call a California mass tort lawyer before any deadline runs.

Deadlines and the Discovery Rule

California gives most product liability plaintiffs two years to file. The clock usually starts on the date you discovered (or reasonably should have discovered) that the product caused your injury, not the date you bought it. That discovery rule matters in pharmaceutical and device cases where the link between the product and the harm is not obvious for years. A California mass tort lawyer at our firm can map the timeline for your specific case during a free consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I have to travel for a mass tort case?

Usually not. Most pretrial work happens in the lead court, which may be outside California, but your participation is generally limited to providing records, sitting for a deposition, and reviewing documents your lawyer sends you. We handle the travel side.

Longer than a single-plaintiff case. Bellwether trials and settlement programs in major mass torts often take two to four years. We give you a realistic timeline at intake.

Not necessarily. Mass torts often settle through a matrix that values cases by severity of injury, age, treatment, and other factors. Your individual facts matter.