Consultants and Expert Witnesses

SILICOSIS Article #2

From Slab to Silica – A Forensic Look at How Exposure Happens

By Gil Chotam & Greg Andrews | National Tile and Stone Authority (NTSA)

Engineered stone litigation isn't just about what happened, it's about proving how it happened.

To win or defend a silicosis case, you need more than a diagnosis. You need a clear, supportable narrative of exposure: who cut what, where, with what equipment, and under what conditions.

This is where early legal strategy intersects with forensics. Whether you're preparing for depositions, building a claim file, or assessing liability, understanding how silica is released, and how safety failures stack up, is essential.

The Fabrication Process: Hidden Dangers at Every Step

Engineered stone, particularly quartz surfaces, are cut, shaped, and polished before installation. Each stage carries exposure risks:

• Cutting (especially dry cutting): the most dangerous step, often done with handheld grinders or bridge saws
• Edge profiling and sink cutouts: high friction shaping that generates dust clouds
• Polishing: surprisingly risky if done dry or with worn-out pads
• Cleanup: sweeping or blowing off surfaces instead of wet vacuums or dust collectors

Even shops that claim to use "wet methods" may fall short. Water sprayers can be inconsistent. Workers often skip respirators during polishing. And many smaller operations lack proper ventilation or air filtration.

Where Lawyers Should Focus

Attorneys on either side of the aisle must look beyond the employer-employee relationship. Here's where liability and exposure pathways often lie:

• Shop owners and supervisors who fail to enforce or document safety protocols
• Product distributors and importers who omit or downplay the crystalline silica content in their SDSs
• General contractors or site managers who allow unsafe on-site cutting
• Equipment manufacturers that fail to warn about the dust hazard of using their tools on high-silica materials

Each party may deny responsibility, but site conditions, documentation, and worker interviews often reveal otherwise.

The "Chain of Dust" – What Experts Look For

At NTSA, we're often brought in to investigate how exposure could have occurred and who had the duty to prevent it. These are the elements we dig into:

• Visual documentation: shop photos, equipment close-ups, cutting stations, even social media images
• SDS sheets: sometimes outdated or incorrect, often missing precise silica content
• Air monitoring data: rare, but critical if it exists
• Work logs and slab invoices: tie the worker to specific materials and tasks
• Respirator programs: were they in place, enforced, and effective?
• Shop layout and airflow: confined space? Shared workstations? Negative pressure?

This evidence builds a forensic timeline. For plaintiffs, it strengthens causation. For defense teams, it can rebut overstated claims or reassign liability.

Exposure Doesn't Require Years

One myth that still floats around litigation is the assumption that silicosis only occurs after decades of exposure. That's not true for engineered stone.

In multiple recent cases, workers developed symptoms within 2–5 years. Some were under 40. Many worked in non-unionized or underregulated shops where daily exposure was severe, and protection minimal.

This short latency period raises the stakes in litigation:

• It reduces the window for preexisting conditions or alternative causes
• It creates clearer liability timelines
• It allows more direct linkage to specific jobs, supervisors, and work practices

For plaintiff firms, this opens doors to confident case development. For defense counsel, it's a call to immediately investigate, or risk having the narrative written for them.

Defense Considerations: When It's Not Your Client

We've worked with defense teams who were initially blamed for exposure—only to discover their client's role came after most of the fabrication work was done.

Key questions for defense lawyers include:

• Was your client on-site during the cutting process?
• Did they contract out the fabrication?
• Were any dust-generating activities performed under their direction?
• Is your client a tool provider, and if so, did they give warnings about respirable silica?

Early expert analysis can help shift or limit liability—sometimes dramatically.

Conclusion: Build the Timeline, Control the Narrative

Engineered stone litigation is growing. So is the complexity. But at its heart, it comes down to this: can you prove the path of exposure?

Whether you're advocating for a worker or defending a company, early forensic support can mean the difference between a dismissed case and a multimillion-dollar verdict.

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