Bay County — Bay City and Essexville — held the Saginaw River shipyards (Defoe Shipbuilding), the Consumers Energy Karn–Weadock generating complex, and the river industry, where shipbuilding and coal-fired power reportedly ran on asbestos insulation and materials.
Michigan allows three years from a mesothelioma or asbestos-cancer diagnosis — measured from when the disease was or should have been discovered — to file a personal-injury claim (MCL 600.5805). A wrongful-death claim must generally be brought within three years of death (MCL 600.5852), but it cannot revive a claim that had already lapsed during the person’s lifetime, so the timeline is worth confirming early. Cases are filed in the county Circuit Court of proper venue; Michigan has no statewide asbestos MDL, and Wayne County (Detroit) has historically carried the state’s largest asbestos docket.