Wyoming Mesothelioma Lawyer: Asbestos Claims, Deadlines & Compensation

If you or someone in your family has been diagnosed with mesothelioma after working at a Wyoming refinery, power plant, trona plant, sugar factory, coal operation, or railroad shop, several claim paths may be open. These usually include claims against asbestos bankruptcy trusts set up to pay asbestos victims, lawsuits against the manufacturers and suppliers of asbestos products, sometimes claims against the owners of the plants where outside contractors' employees worked, benefits programs (Wyoming workers' compensation, FECA for federal civilian employees, and VA benefits for veterans), and FELA lawsuits for railroad workers.

Wyoming gives a diagnosed worker four years to file a lawsuit, counted from when the worker knew, or should have known, of the illness and that it was caused by asbestos. Exactly when the clock starts varies, so to be safe, count from the date of diagnosis. If an earlier X-ray, CT scan or screening showed asbestos-related scarring, a Wyoming court may count the four years from that earlier finding, so call us right away.

After a death, Wyoming is strict. The family's wrongful-death case must be filed within two years of the date of death, and that deadline does not move even if the family learns only later that asbestos caused the death. If your loved one has already passed away, please call now.

You do not need to know the name of the asbestos product before you call. Many Wyoming cases begin with one sentence: "Dad worked at the refinery in Casper," or "Grandpa was a pipefitter at the power plant in Glenrock." We rebuild the exposure history from there using employment and union records, coworker information, trust records, and our database of 200,000+ verified asbestos exposure sites.

Was the exposure at a Wyoming refinery, power plant, or trona plant?

Wyoming's asbestos exposure follows its oil, coal, and minerals. Casper had three refineries: Standard Oil of Indiana (later Amoco), the Texas Company (Texaco), and Socony-Vacuum (later Mobil). Sinclair was built around its refinery. Coal-fired power plants rose at Glenrock (Dave Johnston), Kemmerer (Naughton), and Point of Rocks (Jim Bridger). West of Green River, FMC, Stauffer, and Allied Chemical mined and refined trona. Holly Sugar ran beet-sugar factories at Worland and Torrington, Husky Oil refined at Cody and Cheyenne, and the Union Pacific kept railroad shops at Cheyenne and Laramie. The asbestos trusts' lists hold 336 Wyoming entries across 68 communities, from 20 asbestos trusts, and more than a dozen of our clients worked at Wyoming job sites.

Wyoming worksite	City	Why it matters
Standard Oil (Indiana) / Amoco refinery	Casper	At least 10 trusts, including Johns-Manville — more than any other Wyoming worksite. Crude heaters, crackers, boilers, and miles of insulated piping.
Sinclair refinery (Producers and Refiners, Parco)	Sinclair	At least 9 trusts, including Johns-Manville. The refinery the town was built around.
Texaco refinery (The Texas Company)	Casper	At least 8 trusts, including Johns-Manville.
Socony-Vacuum / Mobil refinery (White Eagle)	Casper	At least 7 trusts, including Johns-Manville.
Dave Johnston Power Plant	Glenrock	At least 7 trusts, including Johns-Manville. Coal-fired station built from the late 1950s.
Naughton Power Plant	Kemmerer	At least 7 trusts, including Johns-Manville.
FMC Westvaco trona plant	Green River	At least 6 trusts, including Johns-Manville. Calciners and kilns lined with refractory.
Husky Oil refinery and warehouse	Cody	At least 6 trusts, including Johns-Manville.
Stauffer Chemical trona plant	Green River	At least 5 trusts, including Johns-Manville.
Holly Sugar factory	Worland	At least 5 trusts, including Johns-Manville; the Torrington factory is listed by at least four.
F.E. Warren Air Force Base	Cheyenne	At least 4 trusts, including Johns-Manville. Federal installation: see the federal section below.

Check Wyoming asbestos exposure sites · Search the trusts' Wyoming lists

Not seeing the worksite? That does not mean your family has no claim. Many claims are built from product-handling reconstruction, coworker information, historical invoices, trust documents, and records from similar worksites. Johns-Manville's trust keeps no site list of its own; most workers exposed to asbestos before 1983 can file with it.

Your legal options after a Wyoming mesothelioma diagnosis

Think in claim paths, not one lawsuit. A Wyoming mesothelioma family often has several different recovery channels. Which ones to pursue, and in what order, depends on the facts; we decide that case by case with the family and the trial team.

Asbestos trust claims

Dozens of asbestos manufacturers filed for bankruptcy and set up trusts to pay current and future victims. Trust claims are not lawsuits — they are administrative filings against funds already set aside. Wyoming refinery, power-plant, and trona workers often qualify for several trusts. We routinely get claims approved by many asbestos trusts. Learn more about asbestos trust claims.

Product liability lawsuits

The manufacturers and suppliers of asbestos products that have not gone bankrupt can still be sued, in Wyoming state court or federal court. Wyoming allows strict-liability claims (a defective product, including one sold without adequate warnings) and negligence claims. Most asbestos workers were exposed to many products from many companies; the family must show that each company's product was a substantial factor in causing the disease, and each company found liable pays its own share. Learn more about product liability lawsuits.

Claims against plant owners

A Wyoming plant owner can be responsible to an outside contractor's employee who was hurt by a dangerous condition at the plant, especially where the owner kept control over the work or the hazard. An owner that left the work entirely to the contractor is generally not responsible for hazards that come with the contractor's own work. These claims are for outside contractors' employees: a worker's claim against their own employer runs through workers' compensation instead. Learn more about premises liability lawsuits.

Workers' compensation, FELA, FECA, VA, and Social Security

• Workers' compensation. A worker's claim against their own employer runs through Wyoming workers' compensation. A claim for a disease like mesothelioma must generally be filed within one year after the diagnosis is first communicated to the worker (or within three years after the last workplace exposure, if that is later), and the injury must be reported to the employer within 72 hours and to the employer and the state within 10 days after it becomes apparent. If you are considering comp, call us early.
• Railroad workers, such as those at the Union Pacific shops in Cheyenne and Laramie, generally sue the railroad under the federal FELA rather than through state comp. A FELA claim must be filed within three years, not Wyoming's four.
• Federal civilian workers (for example at F.E. Warren Air Force Base) are covered by FECA, which is their only remedy against the United States. If a FECA claimant also recovers from a manufacturer, FECA must be repaid from that recovery.
• Veterans with in-service asbestos exposure may qualify for VA disability. A lawsuit or trust recovery does not reduce VA disability compensation, but a veteran who is also a former federal civilian employee generally must choose between VA and FECA benefits for the same disease.
• Social Security disability (SSDI) is available to insured workers who are under full retirement age. Workers' compensation can reduce SSDI.

Learn more about asbestos disability claims.

Can we choose not to sue?

Yes. Some Wyoming families decide to pursue only trust claims and benefits and never file a civil lawsuit. We respect that decision and we will not pressure you into a court case you do not want.

Uncomfortable with the idea of a lawsuit? So was Clarence Borel. He spent 33 years as an insulator on the Gulf Coast and didn't believe in suing anyone — until he realized his coworkers would die the same way he was dying. His 1969 lawsuit helped establish the product-liability law that protects families today, and the cases that followed it eventually led to the bankruptcy trusts that pay claims now. Read his story.

How long do I have to file a Wyoming mesothelioma claim?

Wyoming gives a diagnosed worker four years to file a personal-injury lawsuit. The clock starts when the worker knew, or should have known, of the illness and that it was caused by asbestos. It does not wait until the family learns which companies made the products. Exactly when the clock starts varies, so to be safe, count from the date of diagnosis.

An earlier asbestos finding. If an earlier X-ray, CT scan or screening showed asbestos-related scarring, a Wyoming court may count the four years from that earlier finding, so call us right away.

After a death. The family's wrongful-death case must be filed within two years of the date of death. The Wyoming Supreme Court treats this two-year limit as part of the right to sue itself, so it is not extended when the family learns only later that asbestos caused the death. The case is brought by a wrongful death representative whom a district court appoints in a separate case; filing that appointment case pauses the two years until 30 days after the court makes the appointment. Wyoming's wrongful-death statute allows a claim only where the death was caused by conduct "such as would have entitled the party injured to maintain an action to recover damages if death had not ensued."

A case filed during life. If the worker's own lawsuit is resolved during his lifetime, he recovers his own damages, including pain and suffering. If he dies of the disease first, Wyoming limits the recovery to the family's wrongful-death damages, and the worker's own pain and suffering is no longer part of the case. After a death, the wrongful-death representative and the two-year limit still have to be dealt with, even if a case was already pending, so call us as soon as a death occurs.

Call 833-4-ASBESTOS — free case review.

Legal detail: Wyoming filing deadlines

• Personal injury — 4 years. Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-105(a)(iv)(C) ("An injury to the rights of the plaintiff, not arising on contract and not herein enumerated"). The period runs from accrual. In Ogle v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 716 P.2d 334 (Wyo. 1986), the court held a strict-liability claim timely under the four-year tort period. Nowotny v. L & B Contract Industries, Inc., 933 P.2d 452 (Wyo. 1997), applies the discovery rule to injuries that are not immediately apparent and declines to delay accrual until the plaintiff identifies the manufacturer; it relies on Staiano v. Johns-Manville (Pa. Super. 1982), where knowing that asbestosis came from asbestos products at the work site was enough. No Wyoming decision was found on whether an earlier non-malignant asbestos finding starts the clock for a later mesothelioma.
• Wrongful death — 2 years from death. § 1-38-102(d): "An action for wrongful death shall be commenced within two (2) years after the death of the decedent." Corkill v. Knowles, 955 P.2d 438 (Wyo. 1998): the period is a condition precedent and the discovery rule does not apply (the court let the period run from identification of an unidentified decedent). Robinson v. Pacificorp, 10 P.3d 1133 (Wyo. 2000): a hydrazine death at the Jim Bridger plant; the family's late discovery of the cause did not save the claim, the two-year limit does not violate the open-courts clause, and a death caused by the injury is pursued as wrongful death, not as a survival claim.
• Wrongful death representative. § 1-38-102(a): every action "shall be brought by and in the name of the decedent's wrongful death representative for the exclusive benefit of beneficiaries who have sustained damage." § 1-38-103: appointment by the district court in a separate action, in the county where the decedent resided or died, where the claim arose, or where a defendant resides or may be summoned; filing the appointment action tolls § 1-38-102(d) "from the time the action is filed until thirty (30) days after an order appointing the wrongful death representative is entered." § 1-38-105: publication notice within 30 days after the appointment action is filed; beneficiary report within 60 days after appointment. 2012 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 5 (HB 14), for wrongful-death actions filed on or after July 1, 2012.
• Derivative wording. § 1-38-101: liability exists where the death "is caused by wrongful act, neglect or default such as would have entitled the party injured to maintain an action to recover damages if death had not ensued."
• Survival. § 1-4-101: personal-injury causes of action survive, "but in actions for personal injury damages, if the person entitled thereto dies recovery is limited to damages for wrongful death." § 1-4-102: a pending action does not abate on death (except listed torts). Parsons v. Roussalis, 488 P.2d 1050 (Wyo. 1971): where death is due to the wrongful injuries, the decedent's pain and suffering has "no part in establishing damages"; Robinson, 10 P.3d 1133, follows DeHerrera v. Herrera, 565 P.2d 479 (Wyo. 1977).
• Minors and disability. § 1-3-114: three years after the disability is removed, or the ordinary period, whichever is greater.
• Construction statute of repose — 10 years. § 1-3-111(a) bars claims more than ten years after substantial completion of an improvement to real property against those who construct, alter or repair it or who manufacture or furnish "materials incorporated in the improvement," including personal-injury and wrongful-death claims; an injury in the ninth year gets one more year (§ 1-3-111(b)). § 1-3-112: the repose may not be asserted by a person "in actual possession or control, as owner, tenant or otherwise," of the improvement. Covington v. W.R. Grace-Conn., Inc., 952 P.2d 1105 (Wyo. 1998) (mesothelioma; Zonolite insulation at a refinery): whether the product was an improvement or was used in maintaining equipment (insulation stripped and reapplied at turnarounds) is a fact question. No general products-liability statute of repose was found.
• Breach of warranty. § 34.1-2-725(a)–(b): four years from tender of delivery, regardless of the buyer's knowledge, unless the warranty explicitly extends to future performance. For decades-old products, warranty claims are generally not available.
• Borrowing statute. § 1-3-117: "If by the laws of the state or country where the cause of action arose the action is barred, it is also barred in this state." Boutelle v. Boutelle, 2014 WY 147 (Montana accident; Montana's three-year period applied).
• Claims against public bodies. Governmental Claims Act: a written, itemized claim to the entity within two years of the act, or within two years of its discovery if it was not reasonably discoverable or not discovered despite due diligence (§ 1-39-113(a)), suit within one year after the claim is filed (§ 1-39-114).

Wyoming's asbestos-specific statute

Wyoming has one statute aimed at asbestos claims, and it matters only for a narrow group of defendants:

• Successor companies. A corporation that took on another company's asbestos liabilities through a merger or consolidation before May 13, 1968 can limit its total asbestos liability to the value of the acquired company's assets at the time of the merger, adjusted for interest. The limit does not protect a successor that itself kept mining, selling, making, or installing asbestos products, and it does not affect workers' compensation.

Wyoming has no asbestos trust-disclosure statute and no asbestos medical-criteria statute.

Legal detail: Wyoming's asbestos statute

• Successor Corporation Asbestos-Related Liability Fairness Act. Wyo. Stat. §§ 1-1-131 to -137. § 1-1-132(a)(iii) (successor before May 13, 1968, or any of that successor's successors); § 1-1-134 (cumulative limit: fair market value of the transferor's total gross assets at the merger); § 1-1-135 (valuation, including intangible assets and insurance); § 1-1-136 (annual adjustment at the prime rate plus 1%, not compounded, and not applied to liability insurance); § 1-1-133(b) (exceptions: workers' compensation, non-successor liabilities, NLRA and collective-bargaining obligations, a successor that continued in the asbestos mining, fiber, or product business, and claims filed before the act); § 1-1-137(b) (applies to asbestos claims filed against a successor on or after July 1, 2011).
• No other asbestos statute. A search of all titles of the Wyoming Statutes (2026 edition) for "asbestos" found only §§ 1-1-131 to -137.

Who can be sued in a Wyoming asbestos case?

Product manufacturers and suppliers

The companies that designed, made, and sold the asbestos-containing insulation, boilers, gaskets, packing, refractory, and other products the worker handled or worked near. Wyoming allows strict-liability claims, so the family does not have to prove the manufacturer was careless, but it must prove that the product was defective (for example, sold without an adequate warning) and that it was a substantial factor in causing the disease. A company that supplied insulation or other materials built into a plant during its construction may argue that Wyoming's ten-year construction time limit protects it; insulation that was stripped and replaced during maintenance may not be covered by that limit.

Plant owners

An owner of a refinery, power plant, or other plant can be responsible to an outside contractor's employee for dangerous conditions where it kept control over the work or the hazard. An owner that stayed in control of the plant cannot use the construction time limit. Each case depends on the proof of who controlled the work.

Asbestos bankruptcy trusts

The trusts set up by manufacturers that went bankrupt — Johns-Manville, Owens Corning, Babcock & Wilcox, A.P. Green, Eagle-Picher, Combustion Engineering, Fibreboard, Owens-Illinois, Pittsburgh Corning, W.R. Grace, and many others. Trust claims are separate from a lawsuit, and we coordinate them with any lawsuit case by case.

Employers

A Wyoming employer that was covered by the state's workers' compensation system cannot be sued for a worker's asbestos disease: comp is the only remedy against it. A supervisor or other co-worker can be sued only for willful and wanton misconduct, a very high standard. An employer that was not covered by Wyoming comp, or was behind on its payments, can be sued. In practice, a Wyoming asbestos lawsuit is a case against the product makers and, for outside contractors' employees, sometimes the plant owners — not against the worker's employer.

Public bodies

A city utility, county hospital, school district, or other public body can be sued only under the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act, which has its own short deadlines and dollar limits and bars punitive damages.

Legal detail: product liability, plant owners, and workers' compensation

• Strict products liability. Ogle v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 716 P.2d 334 (Wyo. 1986), adopted Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A as an independent cause of action. Defect, product identification, and causation remain the plaintiff's burden.
• Causation. "In order to qualify as a legal cause, the conduct must be a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiff's injuries." Collings v. Lords, 2009 WY 135. Johnson v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. Product Liability Trust, 11 F. Supp. 3d 1119 (D. Wyo. 2014), applied that standard to an asbestos claim, treated the "frequency, regularity, and proximity" test as a refinement of it rather than a different rule, and granted summary judgment where product-exposure evidence was lacking.
• Plant owners and contractors' employees. Jones v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 718 P.2d 890 (Wyo. 1986): an independent contractor's employee on the owner's premises is generally an invitee; an owner is not obligated to protect the contractor's employees from hazards incidental to the very work the contractor was hired to do, but that exception does not apply where the owner retains control over the hazard or the work.
• Construction repose. § 1-3-111; § 1-3-112 (no repose for an owner or other person in possession or control); Covington, 952 P.2d 1105.
• Workers' compensation exclusivity. Wyo. Const. art. 10, § 4(c) (the right to compensation "shall be in lieu of and shall take the place of any and all rights of action against any employer contributing as required by law to the fund"); Wyo. Stat. § 27-14-104(a) (exclusive as to contributing employers and co-employees "unless the employees intentionally act to cause physical harm or injury"). Bertagnolli v. Louderback, 2003 WY 50, 67 P.3d 627, and Hannifan v. American National Bank of Cheyenne, 2008 WY 65, apply that co-employee exception as willful and wanton misconduct; in Hannifan the employer itself was an immune nonparty on the verdict form. § 27-14-104(c): no immunity for an employer not qualified under the act or more than 30 days delinquent on premiums for the worker.
• Comp deadlines. § 27-14-503(b) (claim within one year after a diagnosis is first communicated, or three years from the last injurious exposure, whichever occurs last); § 27-14-502 (report to the employer within 72 hours and an injury report to the employer and the division within 10 days after the injury became apparent; late reporting raises a rebuttable presumption of denial); § 27-14-603(a) (proof rules for injuries over a substantial period).
• The state's reimbursement and the jurisdictional notice. § 27-14-105(a): the state is reimbursed from a third-party recovery for benefits paid or to be paid, up to one-third of the total proceeds, reduced pro rata for fees and costs. § 27-14-105(b): the complaint must be served by certified mail on the director and the attorney general — "a jurisdictional requirement in order to maintain the suit"; settlements require notice, a defendant must give the state 15 days to object before offering a settlement, and the proceeds carry a continuing lien. § 27-14-105(e)–(f): the department's own action on request, and an extra six months after the worker's deadline.
• Governmental Claims Act. §§ 1-39-113, -114 (deadlines above); § 1-39-118(a)–(b) ($250,000 per claimant and $500,000 per occurrence, extended to any insurance coverage); § 1-39-118(d) (no exemplary or punitive damages, prejudgment interest, or attorney's fees against a governmental entity).

What compensation can a Wyoming mesothelioma case recover?

The Wyoming Constitution provides that "No law shall be enacted limiting the amount of damages to be recovered for causing the injury or death of any person." There is no statutory cap on compensatory or punitive damages against private companies. Claims against public bodies are different (see above).

Personal-injury compensation

• Medical expenses — past and future.
• Lost income and lost earning capacity.
• Pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life — past and future.
• Loss of consortium — a spouse's claim, and a minor child's claim for the loss of a parent's companionship and guidance.

Punitive damages

Punitive damages may be awarded against a company whose own conduct was willful and wanton: intentionally doing, or failing to do, something in reckless disregard of the consequences, under circumstances where a reasonable person would know harm was highly probable. They are decided company by company on the evidence against each one. A plaintiff who wants to discover a company's finances for punitive damages may first have to show the court that a real punitive-damages issue exists. Punitive (exemplary) damages are also allowed in a wrongful-death case.

Wrongful-death compensation

After a death, the wrongful death representative brings one case for the family members who have suffered losses. Each of them may prove their own damages, which can include the loss of the worker's companionship, society, and comfort, the loss of financial support and services, and funeral expenses. If the worker died of the asbestos disease, his own pain and suffering is not part of the recovery. No debt of the worker may be paid out of a wrongful-death recovery if he left a spouse, child, or parent.

Legal detail: Wyoming damages

• No caps. Wyo. Const. art. 10, § 4(a). Subsection (b) allows the legislature to require alternative dispute resolution or a medical review panel before suits against health-care providers; it does not authorize caps. Governmental entities: § 1-39-118.
• Consortium. Nulle v. Gillette-Campbell County Joint Powers Fire Board, 797 P.2d 1171 (Wyo. 1990) (a child's claim for loss of parental consortium against a third party who negligently injures the parent); Hannifan, 2008 WY 65 (consortium awards to an injured worker's minor children affirmed).
• Punitive damages. The willful-and-wanton standard is applied in Cramer v. Powder River Coal, LLC, 2009 WY 45. Campen v. Stone, 635 P.2d 1121 (Wyo. 1981): procedure for discovery and presentation of a defendant's financial condition, under which a defendant may seek a protective order requiring a prima facie showing that a viable punitive-damages issue exists. Federal due-process limits: BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996).
• Wrongful-death damages. § 1-38-102(c): "such damages, pecuniary and exemplary, as shall be deemed fair and just. Every person for whose benefit an action for wrongful death is brought may prove his respective damages ... including damages for loss of probable future companionship, society and comfort." § 1-38-102(b) (exempt from the decedent's debts where a spouse, child, father, or mother survives). § 1-38-102(e) (the appointing court may approve settlements and resolve allocation disputes).
• Survival. § 1-4-101; Parsons, 488 P.2d 1050; Robinson, 10 P.3d 1133.

What evidence do we need to prove a Wyoming asbestos case?

You do not need to gather everything before calling. Most families call with only a few of the items below. We build the rest.

Evidence	Why it helps	What if you do not have it?
Medical records confirming mesothelioma	Establishes the diagnosis and histological type — the foundation of every claim.	Sign a single records release; we obtain the records from your treating hospital and pathology lab.
Employment history (worksites, job titles, approximate dates)	Connects the worker to documented asbestos exposure sites and products.	Even a rough outline is enough. Coworker information, union records, Social Security earnings statements, and our Wyoming database fill in the gaps.
Military service records (DD-214 and similar)	Needed for a VA claim based on in-service exposure.	We help request these through standard military records channels.
Coworker names and contact information	Coworker testimony is often the strongest evidence of which asbestos products were used and how.	Not required to start. We frequently locate coworkers ourselves.
Product photos, invoices, brand recall	Strengthens product-identification claims against specific manufacturers and trusts.	Not required. Product handling can be reconstructed from worksite, trade, and era.
Death certificate (if the worker has passed)	Establishes the date of death — the start of the two-year wrongful-death deadline.	We help obtain it.

You do not need to remember the brand name on a roll of pipe insulation from 1972. You do not need to find a 50-year-old invoice. But the four-year clock runs whether or not the product names are known, so call first; we figure out the rest.

How does Wyoming divide responsibility when many asbestos companies were involved?

Mesothelioma is a cumulative-exposure disease. A typical Wyoming worker handled or worked near products made by many different manufacturers over a long career.

How fault is divided. Wyoming compares fault. A worker or family recovers as long as the worker's own share of the fault is not more than 50% of the total fault of everyone involved, and the damages are reduced by the worker's share.

Each company pays only its own share. Wyoming does not use joint and several liability: each company found liable pays only its own percentage of the total fault. The jury can also assign fault to companies and people who are not in the case, such as bankrupt manufacturers, companies that settled, and the worker's own employer, if there is proof that their fault helped cause the disease. Those shares are not paid by the companies at trial. Trust claims may provide additional compensation, but a trust payment is not a guaranteed replacement for a share the jury assigns to a bankrupt company. This is one reason we plan the trust claims and the lawsuit together.

Legal detail: comparative fault and allocation

• Comparative fault. Wyo. Stat. § 1-1-109(b): contributory fault does not bar recovery "if the contributory fault of the claimant is not more than fifty percent (50%) of the total fault of all actors"; damages are diminished in proportion. § 1-1-109(a)(iv): "fault" includes negligence, strict tort and strict products liability, breach of warranty, assumption of risk, and misuse or alteration of a product.
• Several liability. § 1-1-109(e): "Each defendant is liable only to the extent of that defendant's proportion of the total fault." Anderson Highway Signs & Supply, Inc. v. Close, 6 P.3d 123 (Wyo. 2000) (applied even where the plaintiff was fault-free).
• Nonparties. § 1-1-109(a)(i) ("actor" includes any person or entity whose fault is a proximate cause, "whether or not the actor is a party to the litigation"); § 1-1-109(c) (the jury determines the percentage of fault of each actor). Pinnacle Bank v. Villa, 2004 WY 150 (an immune State may be included in the allocation). In Hannifan, 2008 WY 65, the jury assigned 57% to the immune nonparty employer.

How trust claims, lawsuits, and benefits fit together

Track	What it is	How long it takes
Asbestos trust claims	Filings with the trusts set up in asbestos manufacturers' bankruptcies. No lawsuit. No trial. Paid from money already set aside for asbestos victims.	Often a few months from filing to first payments, depending on the trust.
Civil lawsuit	Lawsuit in Wyoming state court (or federal court) against solvent product manufacturers and, where applicable, plant owners.	Typically a year or more; many cases resolve through settlement before trial.
Workers' compensation, FECA, VA, Social Security; FELA for railroad workers	Benefits programs with their own rules; FELA is a lawsuit against the railroad	Varies by program

These paths affect one another. Wyoming workers' compensation must be repaid from a lawsuit recovery (up to one-third of it), and a lawsuit by a worker covered by Wyoming comp must be formally served on the state; FECA must be repaid too; comp can reduce SSDI; and VA and FECA for the same disease generally require a choice. A lawsuit or trust recovery does not reduce VA disability. Which claims to file, and when, we decide case by case with the family and the trial team.

F.E. Warren Air Force Base and federal exposure

• F.E. Warren Air Force Base (Cheyenne) is on the lists of at least 4 trusts, including Johns-Manville. Federal installations are not sued as premises owners in these cases.
• Active-duty service members cannot sue the United States for injuries incident to service. Veterans with in-service exposure may qualify for VA disability, and they may still have claims against the companies that made the asbestos products.
• Federal civilian employees at the base, the VA medical centers, and other federal workplaces are covered by FECA, their only remedy against the United States. FECA must be repaid from any recovery against a manufacturer.
• Contractor employees working at a federal installation in Wyoming are covered by Wyoming workers' compensation through their employer.
• Uranium workers. The federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act covers certain Wyoming uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters, but it does not cover mesothelioma.

Legal detail: federal programs

• Active duty. Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950).
• FECA. 5 U.S.C. § 8116(c) (exclusive remedy against the United States), § 8116(b) (election between FECA and VA benefits for the same injury), § 8132 (repayment from a third-party recovery).
• SSDI. 42 U.S.C. § 423 (insured status; under full retirement age); § 424a (reduction for workers' compensation).
• Government-contractor defense. Manufacturers of military-specification equipment often raise the federal government-contractor defense under Boyle v. United Technologies Corp., 487 U.S. 500 (1988): reasonably precise specifications approved by the United States, conformity with them, and a warning to the United States about dangers known to the supplier but not to the government. Such cases are often removed to federal court.
• FELA. 45 U.S.C. §§ 51, 53, 56 (railroad's liability for negligence, comparative negligence, three years from accrual).
• RECA. Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, reauthorized July 4, 2025 (Pub. L. 119-21), with a filing deadline of December 31, 2027; its covered diseases do not include mesothelioma.

What happens after you call?

A free case review is a conversation, not a commitment to file a lawsuit.

1. Initial call. We listen. Where did the worker work? Roughly when? What is the diagnosis? Most calls last 20–30 minutes.
2. Worksite and exposure review. We match the worker's history against the trusts' Wyoming lists and our database and identify which manufacturers and trusts apply.
3. Records gathering. We help obtain medical records, employment records, military records (DD-214), and Social Security earnings statements. You do not have to chase these documents yourself.
4. Plan presentation. We lay out every claim path available — lawsuits, trust claims, workers' compensation, VA, FECA, SSDI — and you decide which ones to pursue.
5. Filings. Which claims are filed first, and when, depends on the facts; we decide that case by case with the family and the trial team.
6. No travel required. Almost everything can be done by phone, video, and mail.
7. Settlement offers. We discuss every settlement offer with the family before anyone responds to it. A Wyoming plaintiff who loses can be ordered to pay the defendants' court costs, and one who turns down a defendant's formal settlement offer and then does not do better at trial can be ordered to pay the defendant's costs incurred after the offer.
8. Resolution. Most asbestos cases resolve through settlement. If trial is the right path, we are ready.

Call 833-4-ASBESTOS for a free case review.

Legal detail: costs and offers of judgment

• Costs. W.R.C.P. 54(d)(1): costs other than attorney's fees "should be allowed to the prevailing party."
• Offer of settlement or judgment. W.R.C.P. 68: any party may serve an offer more than 60 days after service of the complaint and at least 28 days before trial; if the judgment the offeree finally obtains is not more favorable, "the offeree must pay the costs incurred after the offer was made" (Rule 68(d)). "'Costs' do not include attorney's fees" (Rule 68(b)).

How Wyoming's laws may work in practice

Dale is 72 and lives in Casper. From 1972 to 2008 he worked as a pipefitter for outside mechanical contractors, never as an employee of the plants where he worked. Through the 1970s and 1980s most of his work was at the Standard Oil (Amoco) refinery in Casper, cutting out and replacing insulated piping and changing gaskets and packing during turnarounds; later he worked on maintenance outages at the Dave Johnston Power Plant in Glenrock. He developed shortness of breath and chest pain in December 2025, and in February 2026 a pleural biopsy confirmed pleural mesothelioma. He never served in the military.

What this can mean for the family. Counting four years from his December 2025 symptoms to be safe, the lawsuit is filed well before December 2029. The Amoco refinery appears on the lists of at least 10 trusts, including Johns-Manville, and the Dave Johnston plant on the lists of at least 7, so Dale's trust claims are planned together with the lawsuit. The lawsuit names the companies whose insulation, boilers, gaskets, and packing he worked with, on strict-liability and negligence claims. Some of them may argue that Wyoming's ten-year construction limit protects insulation built into the plants when they were built, but insulation he cut out and replaced during maintenance is a different question. The refinery's and the power plant's owners may also be responsible if they kept control over the work or the hazards, which depends on the proof. Dale's claim against his own employers runs through Wyoming workers' compensation, filed within a year after his diagnosis, and the state is repaid up to one-third of any lawsuit recovery. Each company pays only its own share of the fault, and the companies will ask the jury to assign shares to bankrupt manufacturers and to his employers. Punitive damages are possible against any company proved to have acted willfully and wantonly. Dale is past full retirement age, so he has no SSDI claim, and he has no VA claim.

If Dale dies before the case is resolved. Because mesothelioma would be the cause of death, Wyoming would limit the recovery to his family's wrongful-death damages; his own pain and suffering would no longer be part of the case. A court would appoint a wrongful death representative, and the death claim would have to be brought within two years of the date of death. His wife and children could each prove their own losses, including the loss of his companionship. His wife and children were around his work clothes for decades; as part of our representation, we offer free asbestos health screening to family members of every client who may have been exposed at home. The screening is a chest X-ray read by a B-reader, with a CT scan if needed; it looks for asbestos-related changes in the lungs and isn't a diagnosis or a reliable way to find mesothelioma early.

Legal analysis of this hypothetical

Limitations. Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-105(a)(iv)(C); accrual on knowledge of the injury and its cause (Nowotny). Counting from the December 2025 symptoms, the outside date to be safe is December 2029.

Defendants and theories. Strict liability under § 402A (Ogle) and negligence against the product makers, with substantial-factor causation (Collings; Johnson v. Allis-Chalmers). Possible § 1-3-111 repose defenses by makers or suppliers of insulation incorporated in original construction; maintenance insulation replaced at turnarounds raises the Covington fact question. Owner claims under Jones v. Chevron (retained control), with § 1-3-112 barring the repose defense for owners in possession or control. No claim against his contractor employers (§ 27-14-104(a)); co-workers only for willful and wanton misconduct (Bertagnolli; Hannifan). No warranty claim (§ 34.1-2-725(b)).

Workers' compensation. Claim within one year after the diagnosis is communicated (§ 27-14-503(b)), with the § 27-14-502 reports; the complaint is served on the director and the attorney general under § 27-14-105(b); reimbursement up to one-third under § 27-14-105(a).

Allocation. § 1-1-109(b), (e); nonparty actors under § 1-1-109(a)(i), including bankrupt companies and the immune employers (Hannifan).

Damages. No cap (Wyo. Const. art. 10, § 4(a)). Punitive damages on willful-and-wanton proof against each company (Cramer), with Campen's financial-discovery procedure.

After death. § 1-4-101 and Parsons/Robinson (wrongful-death damages only where the disease causes the death); §§ 1-38-102(a), (c), (d), 1-38-103 (representative, damages, two years, tolling).

Federal programs. No SSDI (past full retirement age); no military service.

Venue. § 1-5-109: the county where the cause arose or where a defendant resides or may be summoned (Natrona or Converse County).

This example is general. Every case depends on the diagnosis, exposure history, dates, defendants, applicable law, and available evidence.

Why families choose our firm

Our firm has recovered over $400 million for asbestos clients nationally and maintains a database of more than 200,000 verified asbestos exposure sites built over more than a decade. For Wyoming families, that means:

• Wyoming worksite knowledge — all 336 Wyoming entries on the asbestos trusts' lists, across 68 communities, and more than a dozen clients with Wyoming job sites
• Industry-specific documentation — the Casper refineries, Sinclair, the Green River trona plants, the Dave Johnston, Naughton, and Jim Bridger power plants, and Holly Sugar's factories
• Trust claims planned with the lawsuit — we routinely get claims approved by many asbestos trusts
• Benefits coordination — workers' compensation, FELA, FECA, VA, and Social Security, coordinated case by case with the trial team
• Local Wyoming partnerships — we partner with Wyoming counsel where appropriate so cases can be filed in the right Wyoming court
• Remote case handling — almost everything is done by phone, video, and mail
• No fee unless we recover compensation for your family.

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