Artificial Stone Silicosis Lawsuits Put Cambria’s Product Claims Under Scrutiny

A growing wave of artificial stone silicosis lawsuits is challenging manufacturers’ claims that their products can be fabricated safely by human workers. 

In an August 25, 2026, investigation for the Minnesota Star Tribune, reporters Mike Hughlett and Christopher Vondracek examined more than 600 lawsuits filed by workers diagnosed with silicosis after fabricating artificial stone countertops. Minnesota-based Cambria is named as a defendant in most of those cases. 

The workers did not manufacture the slabs. They cut, ground, drilled, shaped, and polished the finished products into countertops. During those ordinary and entirely foreseeable fabrication activities, artificial stone released extraordinarily dangerous dust into the air. 

That danger is inherent in the material. 

Crystalline silica artificial stone slabs are composed of at least 90% respirable crystalline silica. The remaining approximate 10% includes resins, metals, glues, dyes, and other highly toxic substances. When the material is fabricated, it releases enormous amounts of nano-sized particles (much smaller than natural stone or recycled glass products) that travel deep into the lungs and cause inflammation and irreversible scarring. 

The California Department of Public Health describes artificial stone as especially dangerous because of its very high silica content. Peer-reviewed research collected by the department documents elevated respirable crystalline silica exposures, accelerated disease, lung transplantation, and deaths among artificial stone fabrication workers.  

The issue is not whether workers should have tried harder to control the dust. The issue is whether a product that generates this uniquely toxic dust can be safely fabricated by human beings at all. 

A Young Worker, an Incurable Disease, and a $52.4 Million Verdict 

The Star Tribune begins with the story of Brayton Purcell LLP client Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez, who spent more than a decade cutting and polishing artificial stone slabs in Southern California. 

“Cutting the stone,” the reporters wrote, “produced clouds of dust in the Southern California shop where he worked for more than a decade.” 

Gonzalez developed a persistent cough and was ultimately diagnosed with silicosis. In 2023, at only 36 years old, he received a double lung transplant. He later sued companies in the artificial stone supply chain. 

In 2024, a jury assessed a verdict in favor of Gonzalez in the amount of $52.4 million. The jury assigned Cambria 10% of the responsibility after finding Cambria and other defendants liable, including on claims involving negligence and defective product design.  

Gonzalez’s experience is not an isolated event. According to the figures reported by Hughlett and Vondracek, California had identified 635 artificial stone silicosis cases. Thirty-five workers had died, and more than 140 had received or were eligible for lung transplants as of August 13, 2026. 

These workers are often diagnosed much younger than people who developed traditional forms of silicosis in mining and construction. Dr. Amy Heinzerling of the California Department of Public Health told the newspaper: 

“We are seeing severe disease developing over a much shorter time period, even five to 10 years.” In fact, artificial stone silicosis has been found in workers who've had high levels of exposure during fabrication for as little as a few months. 

Her explanation points directly to the product’s composition: artificial stone contains a far higher concentration of crystalline silica than many natural stones, and its fabrication creates exceptionally fine dust capable of penetrating deeply into workers’ lungs. 

Cambria Says Its Product Is Safe “If Handled Properly” 

Cambria denies responsibility and maintains that artificial stone is safe when appropriate precautions are used. 

“You have companies like ours caught up in this that are working really hard to create a product that is perfectly safe if handled properly,” Cambria President Andrew Eich told the Star Tribune. 

That claim is contradicted by the severity, speed, and international scope of the artificial stone silicosis epidemic. 

Silicosis among artificial stone workers has been documented in the United States, Australia, Israel, Spain, Italy, China, and other countries. The disease has appeared in different businesses, under different owners, and in different regulatory systems. Its defining common denominator is the fabrication of high-silica artificial stone. 

Dr. Heinzerling directly addressed the limitations of conventional dust controls: 

“Even with all the right equipment, and doing all the right things, there are studies that show engineered stone countertop workers can be exposed to unsafe levels of silica dust.” 

Artificial stone is also referred to as engineered stone or manufactured stone. Regardless of the marketing term, the underlying hazard remains the same. 

The peer-reviewed scientific literature has identified artificial stone silicosis as a severe, rapidly progressive disease with short latency and high morbidity and mortality. Researchers have also reported that artificial stone dust may have heightened toxicity because of its silica concentration, particle characteristics, and chemical additives. The California Department of Public Health maintains an extensive collection of publications documenting the outbreak and the distinctive dangers associated with artificial stone fabrication. 

Wet tools, ventilation, respirators, and other controls may reduce visible dust. They do not alter the composition of the product. They do not remove the crystalline silica from the slab. They do not prevent every nano-sized particle from becoming airborne. They do not make human fabrication safe. 

Cambria’s Own Operations Undercut Its Argument 

Cambria emphasizes that it has detected no silicosis cases among workers at its three cutting facilities (they've conducted no testing of its employees to substantiate that claim). But the way Cambria cuts its own products raises an important question: If ordinary human fabrication is safe, why does Cambria rely on robotic machinery to perform the cutting? 

As the Star Tribune reported: 

“At Cambria’s own fabrication plant in Belle Plaine, robot machines cut slabs of engineered quartz with jets of water.” 

The article further explains that Cambria workers are directly involved only in polishing, which is performed using water-aided tools. 

That distinction matters. Cambria does not place workers next to its slabs to perform the principal cutting work by hand. Robots and water jets isolate people from one of the most dust-intensive fabrication processes. Human workers are limited to polishing with water-aided tools. 

Cambria cannot reasonably point to the absence of diagnosed disease in a highly automated facility as proof that workers elsewhere can safely fabricate its slabs by hand. A robotic production model is not evidence that the material is safe for human fabrication. It is evidence of the extraordinary measures Cambria itself uses when cutting its product. 

Blaming Others Does Not Resolve a Defective-Product Claim 

Cambria representatives told the Star Tribune that California’s outbreak resulted from fabricators that allegedly failed to follow safety requirements. 

“It’s criminal what these shop owners are doing,” Eich said. 

That position diverts attention from the product itself. 

Artificial stone manufacturers design the slabs, select their ingredients, determine their silica concentration, market them for countertop use, and place them into commerce knowing that fabrication is required before installation. A slab cannot become a custom countertop without being cut, drilled, ground, shaped, and polished. 

Those activities are not misuse. They are the product’s intended and foreseeable uses. 

The fact that injured workers were employed by fabrication businesses rather than slab manufacturers does not eliminate potential product liability. Product-liability law has long recognized that manufacturers may be held accountable when defective products injure workers, consumers, or bystanders outside the manufacturer’s own workforce. 

The outbreak cannot be adequately explained as a collection of unrelated workplace failures. Artificial stone workers in multiple countries have developed an unusually aggressive form of silicosis after working with the same category of ultra-high-silica material. The recurrence of the disease across borders and businesses points to the product, not to any particular worker or employer. 

Lawsuits Are Producing Meaningful Change 

Artificial stone silicosis lawsuits serve purposes extending beyond compensation in an individual case. 

Litigation uncovers internal corporate records, warnings, testing data, marketing decisions, product-development information, and communications about known hazards. It allows juries to evaluate manufacturers’ safety claims against medical evidence and the real experiences of workers. 

Lawsuits also create financial incentives for manufacturers to redesign products, reduce or eliminate crystalline silica, provide stronger warnings, and develop alternatives that do not expose human beings to lethal dust. 

The verdict for Gonzalez and verdicts in other cases demonstrate that workers’ evidence is reaching juries. In a Colorado case discussed by the Star Tribune, a jury awarded approximately $17 million to a worker and assigned $5 million to Cambria after finding that the company misrepresented its product. Although every case depends on its own facts, litigation is forcing public examination of claims that might otherwise remain confined to industry marketing. 

“We’re only a few cases into this,” Brayton Purcell LLP attorney James Nevin told the newspaper. 

That observation is important. More than 600 workers have reportedly filed claims, but relatively few have reached trial. The litigation remains in an early stage, and each case can add to the public record concerning artificial stone’s composition, toxicity, warnings, and feasibility of safer alternative designs. 

Proposed Federal Immunity Would Undermine Worker Protections 

Cambria is also supporting proposed federal legislation that would shield artificial stone manufacturers from certain product-liability lawsuits. 

Eich characterized the pending cases as “a weaponization of the tort system.” Nevin rejected that characterization: 

Granting manufacturers immunity is “insane and goes against 100 years of product liability law to protect consumers and workers.” 

Product-liability litigation exists precisely because the people injured by a product often have no role in its design, composition, manufacture, or marketing. Removing manufacturers from the civil justice system would shift the consequences of artificial stone disease onto workers, families, health systems, and communities. 

Professor David Michaels, former head of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, told the Star Tribune that existing federal standards are not adequate to protect artificial stone fabrication workers. He also described the litigation as an “existential threat” to manufacturers. 

That threat does not arise from workers bringing claims. It arises from companies continuing to sell a product whose intended fabrication releases extraordinarily toxic dust. 

Accountability Can Help Prevent the Next Diagnosis 

Artificial stone silicosis is incurable. It may continue progressing after exposure ends. For many workers, only a lung transplant offers a chance of extended survival. 

No verdict can restore healthy lungs. Litigation can, however, provide financial support for medical care, lost income, pain, disability, and family losses. It can bring concealed or disputed facts into public view. It can challenge misleading safety claims. Most importantly, it can pressure manufacturers to stop selling products that cannot be safely fabricated by human beings. 

As Professor Michaels warned: 

“I think this is the tip of the iceberg.” 

The civil justice system gives workers and their families a means to confront that danger and demand accountability from the companies that designed, manufactured, marketed, and profited from the sales of crystalline silica artificial stone slabs. 

Speak With Brayton Purcell LLP About Artificial Stone Exposure 

If you cut, ground, drilled, polished, or installed artificial stone countertops and have experienced coughing, shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, or an abnormal lung scan, consider speaking with a medical professional promptly. 

If you or a family member has been diagnosed with silicosis after artificial stone exposure, Brayton Purcell LLP can help you understand your legal options. Our attorneys have represented people harmed by toxic occupational exposures for more than 40 years. 

Call 800-361-2417 or contact Brayton Purcell LLP online for a confidential case evaluation.