Cerro Gordo County — Mason City and Clear Lake — is a Portland-cement town, home to the Lehigh and Northwestern States cement works and their kilns and quarries, whose high-heat process systems reportedly relied on asbestos-containing insulation and materials for generations.
Iowa allows two years from a mesothelioma or asbestos-cancer diagnosis to file a personal-injury or wrongful-death claim (Iowa Code § 614.1(2)), with the clock running from diagnosis under the discovery rule of Iowa’s asbestos-claims act (Chapter 686B). Iowa also requires a sworn medical affidavit to be filed with the complaint (§ 686B.3). Cases are filed in the county District Court of proper venue; Iowa has no statewide asbestos MDL.