Mesothelioma can take 20 to 50 years to develop after initial asbestos exposure. By the time someone receives a diagnosis, the job sites, products, and coworkers tied to that exposure may be decades in the past. That gap is why occupational history, the detailed record of where someone worked, what they did, and what materials surrounded them, sits at the center of nearly eve...

A mesothelioma or asbestos-related disease diagnosis raises an immediate legal question: Who is responsible? You can’t sue the asbestos industry in general because claims must name specific manufacturers whose products caused a specific person’s exposure. That process, called product identification, is one of the most challenging and consequential parts of any asbestos case.<...

Asbestos diseases often surface decades after the exposure that caused them. That long timeline creates a practical problem in litigation: The company responsible may have changed names, sold assets, or gone out of business, and its insurance paperwork may sit in a warehouse or nowhere at all.

“Insurance archaeology” describes the work of locating old liability cove...