Jackson County — Jackson — held the auto-parts, tool, and prison-industry manufacturing and the Consumers Energy operations of south-central Michigan, work whose high-heat systems reportedly used asbestos-containing 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.