Asbestos and Silicosis Lawyer

Asbestos and silicosis claims

Both diseases come from breathing dust at work. Both take years to appear. Both are still happening to people today.

Asbestos exposure is usually decades in the past. Silicosis is frequently current, and that is the part people miss. Workers cutting engineered stone countertops are being diagnosed in their thirties, from exposure in the last few years rather than the last few decades.

Asbestos exposure

Asbestos was used across construction, shipbuilding, refineries, power generation, and manufacturing for most of the twentieth century. Along the Gulf Coast it was everywhere: refineries, petrochemical plants, shipyards, and the trades that serviced them.

The diseases associated with it include mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis. The interval between exposure and diagnosis is commonly measured in decades, which is why someone diagnosed today is often being harmed by work done in the 1970s or 1980s.

The work history is the case. Job sites, job titles, dates, trades worked alongside, and the specific products handled. These claims are proven by reconstructing where a person was and what was in the air, which is why the detail of a work history matters more here than in almost any other injury case.

Silicosis and engineered stone

Silicosis comes from breathing respirable crystalline silica dust. Cutting, grinding, and polishing stone releases it.

The traditional exposures were mining, foundry work, sandblasting, and construction. The newer one is engineered stone countertop fabrication, where the material contains a far higher silica content than natural stone. Cutting it dry, without water suppression or respiratory protection, produces extremely high exposures.

The result has been silicosis appearing in much younger workers, progressing faster, and in severe cases requiring a lung transplant. Many of the affected workers are immigrants working in small fabrication shops, which raises its own barriers to getting help.

Potentially responsible parties can include the manufacturer of the stone product, the supplier and distributor, equipment manufacturers, and in some circumstances parties other than the employer, depending on workers compensation rules and who else contributed.

What to gather

1. A complete work history. Every employer, job site, job title, and approximate dates, plus names of co-workers who can corroborate it.
2. The diagnosis. Pathology, imaging, pulmonary function testing, and specialist records.
3. Union records, Social Security earnings records, and W-2s, which can reconstruct an employment history when memory cannot.
4. Product identification where possible. Brands of stone, insulation, gaskets, or other materials handled.
5. Any air monitoring or industrial hygiene records, and whether respiratory protection was provided.
6. Smoking history, which will be asked about and is better addressed directly than avoided.

Deadlines run from diagnosis, not exposure

This is the most important practical point on this page.

Because these diseases take years to appear, limitations periods in occupational disease cases generally run from diagnosis, or from when the person knew or reasonably should have known the illness was work related, rather than from the exposure itself.

That means a diagnosis today can support a claim about work done forty years ago. It also means the clock is now running, so a recent diagnosis should not sit.

Deadlines vary by state and by the facts. If you or a family member has been diagnosed, get the question answered rather than assuming it is too late.

Robert Law Group handles occupational disease, product liability, and mass tort claims in Texas and Utah. See also our silica exposure page.