Kansas City is the country’s clearest bi-state metropolis: the state line runs straight through the middle of a single industrial economy. The West Bottoms stockyards and rail yards, the power houses, the packing plants, and the auto works spread across both banks without regard for which state a worker clocked in on. For most of the twentieth century those operations ran on asbestos — pipe covering and block insulation on the steam and power systems, refractory in the furnaces, gaskets throughout — and the trades who built and maintained them were reportedly exposed for full careers.
The state line does two things to a claim. First, it sets the court: the Missouri side files in Jackson County’s Sixteenth Judicial Circuit or Clay County’s Seventh; the Kansas side in Wyandotte County’s 29th Judicial District or Johnson County’s 10th. Second — and this one is decisive — it sets the deadline. Missouri allows five years from a mesothelioma diagnosis to file a personal-injury claim; Kansas allows only two. A worker exposed at a plant on the Kansas bank of the metro has less than half the time of one a few miles away on the Missouri side. Getting the state — and the clock — right is the first thing that matters. Choose your area below.