Video: Silicosis Injury Lawyer: Quartz & Engineered Stone Workers Need to Know

August 18, 2026

Transcript

If you’ve spent years cutting, grinding, polishing, or fabricating quartz or engineered stone countertops, and you now have breathing problems or a diagnosis of silicosis, there’s something you need to understand, and that is that this disease is not just ordinary dust exposure. I’m Attorney Tracy Paulsen, founder of Rightful Legal. We help injured people throughout Massachusetts.

Why Engineered Stone and Quartz Can Be Dangerous

Engineered stone and quartz are commonly used for kitchen countertops, kitchen islands, bathroom vanities, and other residential and commercial surfaces.

Homeowners see the finished product after it has already been cut, polished, and installed. But fabricators experience something very different.

How Countertop Fabrication Creates Silica Dust

Before that countertop ever reaches a kitchen or bathroom, workers may spend hours cutting, grinding, drilling, shaping, and polishing large slabs of this material. That process can release respirable crystalline silica, particles so small that they can travel deep into the lungs.

What Is Respirable Crystalline Silica?

Engineered stone can contain extremely high levels of crystalline silica. Over time, breathing that dust can cause inflammation and permanent scarring inside the lungs.

That disease is called silicosis. The scarring does not simply go away when the exposure stops.

How Silicosis Permanently Damages the Lungs

Silicosis can progressively make it harder to breathe, harder to work, and harder to do the things that one used to be able to do as part of everyday life.

In the most serious cases, workers have been required to have double lung transplants. Others have passed away from this terrible disease.

What is particularly troubling is that this is affecting relatively young workers, people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who expected to have decades of work and family life ahead of them.

Silicosis Cases in Massachusetts

Massachusetts is not immune. The state has now confirmed silicosis in workers from the stone countertop industry.

If you were a fabricator or you knew someone who was and they were diagnosed with silicosis, they may have a legal claim for compensation and accountability.

Wrongful Death Claims for Silicosis

If you lost a spouse, parent, or family member to silicosis after years of working around engineered stone or quartz, they may have a wrongful death claim.

These cases can involve the companies that manufactured, distributed, supplied, or sold the engineered stone products that workers were cutting.

Companies and Product Liability in Engineered Stone Silicosis Cases

These companies include Caesarstone and Cambria. They have been named as defendants in this engineered stone silicosis litigation. Other lawsuits around the country have also named companies such as Cosentino Group and Color Marble.

That does not mean any particular company is automatically responsible in every case. Responsibility depends on the products involved and the circumstances of the individual worker’s exposure.

But the broader question is important. Who put these high-silica products into the marketplace? What did they know about the risks created during fabrication? And were workers adequately protected from those dangers?

Potential Compensation in Silicosis Cases

The compensation available in a silicosis case can be significant because the harm can be life-changing and can also be fatal.

A claim may include damages for medical expenses, future treatment, lost wages, loss of future earning capacity, pain and suffering, permanent physical limitations, and the long-term effect this disease will have on a person’s independence and family.

For a younger worker who can no longer return to fabrication, construction, or other physical work, the financial loss may stretch across decades.

Accountability for Quartz and Engineered Stone Workers

But these cases are also about something more than compensation. They are about accountability.

Workers should be able to trust that the products they spend years working on and handling can be used without exposing them to a disease that permanently destroys their lungs.

At Rightful Legal, we help workers and families understand what happened, identify the companies that are responsible, and pursue the compensation and accountability the law allows by taking these companies to court.

What to Do After a Silicosis Diagnosis

If you have been diagnosed with silicosis or you lost someone who worked fabricating quartz or engineered stone, you should understand your options.

I am here and available to have a free, confidential consultation about your potential case. You can reach me directly at 617-821-5856.

Please reach out, and thank you again for watching this video. Please like or share if you found this informative. Thanks.