The lower-Mississippi towns of southeast Iowa ran on river industry — Muscatine’s HON office-furniture, Bandag, Grain Processing, and Monsanto works; the great Iowa Army Ammunition Plant and the CNH (Case) farm-equipment works at Burlington; and the Sheaffer pen and grain plants at Keokuk. Chemical processing, munitions, and heavy manufacturing of this kind reportedly relied on asbestos insulation and materials for most of the twentieth century, and the trades who ran them were reportedly exposed for full careers.
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.