Proposed artificial stone ban could bolster silicosis lawsuits

California's proposed prohibition on fabricating and installing artificial stone containing crystalline silica could give workers pursuing silicosis lawsuits a powerful new argument that the products themselves are unsafe, plaintiffs' attorneys said Monday.

The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board is expected this month to consider an emergency regulation barring fabrication and installation of manufactured stone containing more than 1% crystalline silica. California would become the first state to impose such a restriction, following Australia, which banned engineered-stone countertops in 2024.

The proposal comes as California confronts hundreds of cases of silicosis among countertop workers and a growing wave of products-liability litigation. Since 2019, the state has confirmed 657 silicosis cases and 35 related deaths among countertop workers, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Raphael Metzger, whose Metzger Law Group represents more than 250 fabricators diagnosed with silicosis or other silica-related diseases, said adoption of the regulation could have an indirect but significant effect on pending cases.

A central allegation in many of the suits is that artificial stone is defectively designed because it cannot be safely fabricated. If the regulation is adopted with findings reaching the same conclusion, plaintiffs could ask judges to take judicial notice of the state's determination, Metzger said.

"Whether the court will take judicial notice of it and let the jury ... consider that, I can't predict," Metzger said. "But that's the major impact that I think that the prohibition could have on the pending litigation."

Metzger cautioned that the proposal is not technically a ban on artificial stone itself. It would prohibit its fabrication and installation in California, but not its purchase or sale -- a distinction he said could also make the regulation less vulnerable to constitutional challenges involving interstate commerce.

James P. Nevin Jr., a partner at Brayton Purcell LLP, which represents hundreds of artificial-stone workers, said the proposal would also undercut a central defense in the cases: that quartz can be handled safely with appropriate workplace controls.

Nevin said Cal-OSHA's action would make it harder for defendants to argue at trial that health experts are wrong about the product's risks and predicted it would accelerate the industry's move toward slabs made with recycled glass and other alternatives.

Daniel J. Morse of Dean Omar Branham Shirley, LLP, another attorney representing stone workers, similarly framed the proposal as validation of plaintiffs' design-defect theory.

"California confirmed what stone fabricators learned at the cost of their lungs, that artificial engineered stone is a defective product that cannot be safely fabricated in the real world," Morse said. "I hope the ban will save future workers. For the workers already dying, the fight for justice will continue."

Manufacturers and distributors have disputed that characterization. Industry representatives have maintained that quartz itself can be used safely and have attributed the silicosis epidemic to unsafe practices in fabrication shops. Cambria, the largest U.S. engineered-stone manufacturer, has publicly argued that "the problem is the process, not the product."

Metzger said California's action could reverberate beyond pending lawsuits and ultimately influence regulators elsewhere.

"If California implements this prohibition," he said, "it will have impact probably throughout the country and may result in similar prohibitions or bans."