Kalamazoo County — Kalamazoo — was a paper-and-pharmaceutical center, home to the Kalamazoo paper mills and the Upjohn works, whose pulp digesters, boilers, and process systems reportedly relied on asbestos-containing insulation and gaskets.
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.