Six days a week, from morning to night, Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez cuts engineered stone, a man-made product that has become a popular choice for kitchen and bathroom countertops.
The smooth board is stain-resistant, highly durable and available in a variety of colors. They’re also high in crystalline silica: tiny particles that can irreversibly scar the lungs when inhaled.
By the time Reyes Gonzalez turned 33, his lungs had been ravaged by silicosis, an incurable disease. He was forced to rely on an oxygen tank and became thin and weak. At one point, he said, he asked God to end his life to end his pain.
His doctors say the 34-year-old only has this day to live because both of his lungs have been replaced via transplants – and the grueling surgery may only give him another six years to live.
“We don’t know how long he’s going to live with his lungs,” his wife, Wendy Torres Hernandez, told a Los Angeles court. After the transplant, he had to take a lot of medication, restrict his diet, and pay close attention to his blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
All these measures “will last until his death,” she said.
In Los Angeles County, a jury will weigh an issue that could reverberate through the stone industry: Was a company that manufactured or distributed engineered stone negligent?
Health researchers have linked the surge in silicosis cases in countertop cutters to a boom in engineered or engineered stone, which often has much higher silica content than natural marble or granite. In California, dozens of workers with silicosis have filed lawsuits against companies including Cambria and Caesarstone.
Reyes Gonzalez is the first of them to go to trial, according to his attorney. A civil case in Los Angeles County raises a test of whether companies that make artificial stone can be held liable amid a devastating outbreak of silicosis, which has killed more than a dozen countertop cutters in California in recent years.
Dr. Robert Harrison, a professor of occupational medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied silicosis among countertop cutters, said the plaintiffs’ ruling will “send a message to manufacturers that they are responsible for producing toxic products like engineered stone.” .
Regardless of the outcome, Harrison said the court case “puts a spotlight on the workers behind the products we buy.” He said it could increase public awareness that “some of the workers who make our products get sick or even deathâ and hopefully inspire new efforts to stop it.
“Regardless of the outcome of this case, all companies engaged in surface fabrication and their employees must accept relevant regulations,” said Marissa Bankert, executive director of the International Surface Fabricators Assn., which represents panel cutting companies. Educate and follow safety practices.
In a trial that lasted several weeks, lawyers for Reyes Gonzalez argued that manufacturers of engineered stone failed to issue appropriate warnings about the dangers of their products. Attorney Gilbert Purcell called it “toxic and dangerous” and “flawed in design,” arguing its risks far outweighed its benefits.
The question is, “Why not eliminate this product entirely? Society doesn’t need this product,” Purcell told jurors. “It certainly didn’t need the carnage it caused.”
Lawyers for the engineered stone manufacturers countered that the responsibility lies with the operators of the Orange County shop where Reyes Gonzalez worked. These “job shops” cut the panels produced by the manufacturers.
“We know the product is safe when handled safely,” Cambria attorney Lindsay Weiss said.
Reyes Gonzalez testified that he cut engineered slate at a series of shops in Orange County. Sometimes there is so much dust in the air that it looks like fog, he said. He testified that his mask became “very dirty.” Reyes Gonzalez said that even if water is used when cutting, when it dries “it sheds a lot of dust.”
Caesarstone argued in court that it had given the store all the information it needed to protect workers, including guidance on ventilation and wet cutting to suppress dust. The company’s attorney, Peter Strotz, said what happened to the worker was a tragedy but avoidable.
Strotz believes the situation could have been avoided if “those who own and operate the manufacturing shop where he worked had done as Caesarstone asked.”
He and other attorneys representing engineered stone manufacturers have tried to turn the spotlight on members of the Silverio family who paid Reyes Gonzalez for work at the Orange County store.
The worker’s attorney argued that the Silverios were not his employers and that Reyes Gonzalez was an independent contractor. Fernando Silverio Soto, founder of Silverio Stone Works, testified that all he knew about the dangers was what he was told: Maximize the risk by wearing a mask and using water while cutting to reduce risks.
Strotz showed the court a Caesarstone form signed by Silverio that said he had received safety messages and an instructional film. In court, Silverio denied ever seeing such material.
Jon Grzeskowiak, Cambria’s executive vice president of research and development and process operations, said the company offers free training to stonecutters and safety information about its products is available on its website. Fernando Silverio Soto testified that he had not seen the website or gone to the Caesarstone website to obtain such information.
“I was never told I needed to do this,” he said of the Caesarstone site.
Defense attorneys also presented testimony from expert witnesses who testified that engineered stone can be cut and polished safely through the effective use of workplace protective measures. Reyes Gonzalez’s lawyers turned to experts who disputed whether measures such as wearing masks or using water while cutting were enough.
Among them was industrial hygienist Stephen Petty, who testified that N95 masks were insufficient to protect workers from the dust produced by grinding artificial stone.
Petty said even the best respirators, which provide clean air to workers from a canister, don’t work well in the long run because it’s so uncomfortable and workers tend to adjust it, breaking the seal.
UCSF’s Harrison, who did not testify, said it would be difficult to protect workers cutting artificial stone. “It requires a lot of capital and a fairly sophisticated, knowledgeable employer with a lot of expensive machinery and ventilation systems to protect workers from artificial stone dust.”
Safety regulators around the world are grappling with the risks of engineered stone as its popularity soars. In Australia, the government eventually banned the use of artificial slate due to public uproar over the illness and death of stonemasons. The workplace safety regulator there said it was “the only way to ensure the next generation of Australian workers do not contract silicosis from this type of work”.
In California, instead of issuing a ban, government regulators have instituted stricter rules on silica exposure in the workplace. This summer, Assemblyman Luz Rivas, D-North Hollywood, the sponsor of another proposal to limit which businesses could perform stone cutting, said state regulators “wouldn’t accept it” as a licensee. The store establishes a tracking system.
Cal/OSHA officials have warned in the past that they may move forward with a ban on engineered stone if tightening regulations has no effect. However, the agency said in a recent report that it has so far rejected the idea because a ban could encourage “the creation of illegal manufacturing plants that hide regulators.”
