Wayne County is the industrial core of the metro — Ford’s River Rouge works at Dearborn, the Downriver steel mills (Great Lakes Steel and McLouth) at Ecorse and Trenton, the Wyandotte chemical plants, and the Detroit auto and rail industry. These were among the most asbestos-intensive worksites in the country, and Wayne County has long carried Michigan’s largest asbestos docket.
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.