Silicosis from Quartz Countertops & Engineered Stone | Fort Smith, AR | Edward O. Moody, P.A.
If you cut, grind, or install quartz countertops for a living in Fort Smith or the surrounding Arkansas River Valley, this page is written for you. Not for lawyers. Not for insurance adjusters. For the person who goes to work in a fabrication shop or drives to job sites fitting countertops into kitchens and bathrooms, and who may have recently been told that their lungs are not right.
There is a lung disease spreading through the countertop trades that most workers do not hear about until they are already sick. It is called silicosis, and it comes from the dust that gets released when engineered stone — quartz countertops specifically — is cut and ground. That dust contains crystalline silica in concentrations that are far higher than in natural granite or marble, and when you breathe it in day after day, it scars your lungs permanently.
The disease is showing up in workers in their twenties and thirties. People who have been in the trade for just a few years. That is not supposed to happen with occupational lung disease, and the reason it is happening is because engineered stone is genuinely different from the materials that came before it.
Edward O. Moody, P.A. represents quartz countertop workers in Fort Smith and across the River Valley who have been diagnosed with silicosis or another silica-related disease. If that is where you are, read this, and then call us.
What Makes Engineered Stone So Much More Dangerous Than Regular Stone
Walk into almost any kitchen showroom in Fort Smith today and you will see quartz countertops. Silestone. Caesarstone. Cambria. MSI. These are engineered stone products — manufactured by binding crushed quartz with resins and polymers to create a surface that is harder and more uniform than natural granite.
That manufacturing process starts with raw quartz, and quartz is almost entirely crystalline silica. Natural granite, by comparison, contains somewhere around 25 to 45 percent crystalline silica. Engineered stone products routinely contain 90 to 95 percent. That is not a small difference. When you cut natural granite, you are generating silica dust. When you cut engineered quartz, you are generating a dust cloud that is almost pure silica.
The particles are microscopic — too small to see, too small to taste, too small to feel in your throat. They travel deep into the lungs, past every natural defense the body has, and they get stuck there. The body cannot remove them. The immune system attacks them, fails, and the resulting inflammation slowly scars the lung tissue. That process is called silicosis, and it cannot be reversed.
In a busy fabrication shop in Sebastian County, workers may run saws and grinders through quartz slabs for eight to twelve hours a day. Without proper wet-cutting equipment, without functional ventilation systems, without the right respirators — the silica exposure in those conditions is extreme. OSHA set limits for crystalline silica in the workplace precisely because of what those concentrations do to human lungs. A lot of shops are not meeting those limits.
The Workers This Is Happening To in Fort Smith
Countertop Fabricators
Fabrication shop workers are at the center of this crisis. These are the tradespeople who take raw slabs and transform them into finished countertops — cutting to size, shaping edges, cutting sink holes, grinding and polishing surfaces. Every one of those operations produces silica dust.
In Fort Smith and the surrounding area, many fabrication shops are small, owner-operated businesses that supply the local construction and remodeling market. Some are well-run. Others operate with minimal dust control — no water suppression systems on saws, no exhaust ventilation, workers without proper respiratory protection going through full-day shifts in conditions that accumulate silica exposure faster than most people realize. The workers in those shops trusted their employers. They should have been able to.
Countertop Installers
Installers face a different exposure scenario but a real one. They bring finished countertops to job sites and make cuts and adjustments on-site — trimming pieces to fit unusual dimensions, cutting holes for sinks and cooktops, grinding down edges. Those cuts happen in kitchens and bathrooms with no ventilation, no dust suppression, and confined airspace. A single on-site cut with a dry angle grinder in a small bathroom creates a silica dust cloud that lingers long after the work is done.
Installers working across Fort Smith, Van Buren, Greenwood, and into Oklahoma have been doing this work through the home renovation and new construction boom of the past decade. The cumulative exposure adds up, and it adds up faster with engineered stone than with any material the trades have handled before.
Workers at Stone Manufacturing Facilities
Some workers in the River Valley region were employed at facilities that actually process and manufacture engineered stone slabs. These operations work directly with bulk raw quartz material — mixing, pressing, cutting large-format panels. The silica concentrations at the production level can be severe, and workers in those plants often had the most intense exposures of anyone in the supply chain.
Family Members with Take-Home Exposure
Silica dust sticks to clothing, skin, and hair. Workers who go home after a full day in a fabrication shop can carry significant contamination with them. Spouses who handle work clothing, children who spend time around a parent before they shower — this is sometimes called take-home exposure, and it is a documented exposure pathway that has formed the basis of legitimate legal claims.
The Diagnoses: What Silica Exposure Can Do to a Person
Silicosis
Silicosis is the defining disease of this crisis. It develops when silica particles trigger a chronic inflammatory response in the lungs that the body cannot resolve, producing scar tissue that stiffens and shrinks lung capacity over time. It is irreversible.
Three forms exist. Chronic silicosis develops after a decade or more of moderate exposure. Accelerated silicosis appears within five to ten years of heavy exposure. Acute silicosis — the most devastating form — can develop within months of extreme exposure and can progress to respiratory failure rapidly. Workers cutting high-silica engineered stone without adequate protection are in the territory where accelerated and even acute cases have been documented.
Early symptoms get dismissed easily — a persistent cough that seems like a cold that will not quit, shortness of breath during physical activity that seems like getting out of shape, chest tightness that gets written off as stress. By the time a pulmonologist makes the diagnosis, the disease is often already significantly advanced.
Lung Cancer
Crystalline silica is a known human carcinogen. Workers who develop silicosis face a meaningfully elevated risk of lung cancer on top of it. Silica exposure alone, independent of smoking, carries documented cancer risk in workers with heavy, sustained exposure. Defense lawyers will always try to use smoking history as a distraction, but that argument does not hold up against the medical evidence when the silica exposure was real and heavy.
COPD
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — emphysema and chronic bronchitis — is a documented outcome of long-term silica dust inhalation. COPD is permanent. It limits lung function progressively, it makes physical work increasingly difficult or impossible, and for someone who has spent their career in the trades, the impact on their livelihood can be total.
Kidney Disease
The inflammatory process silica triggers in the lungs does not always stay contained there. Research over the past two decades has established a link between significant silica exposure and chronic kidney disease. It is less commonly associated with stone work in public awareness, but the science is real. Workers with both a kidney disease diagnosis and a countertop trade history should not assume the two are unrelated.
Autoimmune Conditions
Some silica-exposed workers develop autoimmune diseases — rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, scleroderma — that appear unrelated to their work but are not. The systemic inflammation triggered by silica particles in the lungs can extend to affect other organ systems. If you have been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition alongside a history of engineered stone work, it is worth raising with an attorney.
Who Is Responsible for What Happened to You
Silicosis from quartz countertop work is not bad luck. It is the result of decisions made by companies — manufacturers, employers, distributors — that prioritized other things over the safety of the people doing the work.
Liability in these cases typically falls on some combination of the following:
- Engineered stone manufacturers — Silestone, Caesarstone, Cambria, MSI, Viatera, and others — who marketed and sold products with crystalline silica concentrations they knew were far higher than traditional stone, to a fabrication workforce that often had no idea what they were cutting
- Fabrication shop employers who did not implement the dust control measures OSHA requires for work with crystalline silica — wet-cutting systems, local exhaust ventilation, proper respirators, air monitoring, written respiratory protection programs
- General contractors and property owners who brought stone work onto job sites without enforcing safety standards or providing adequate working conditions
- Distributors and suppliers who moved high-silica products through the supply chain without adequate warnings about the specific and serious hazard they presented
More than one party can be liable in the same case. We investigate the full picture of your exposure — every employer, every shop, every product — before we determine who we are going after and how.
What the Manufacturers Knew and Chose Not to Do
This is not a situation where the science suddenly emerged and caught an industry off guard. The health effects of crystalline silica have been documented in occupational medicine for decades. OSHA established permissible exposure limits for crystalline silica years before engineered stone became a mainstream consumer product, and those limits were specifically tightened in 2016 as evidence about engineered stone risks mounted.
Major engineered stone manufacturers had access to safety data, internal research, and industry health information that documented the elevated risk their products posed compared to natural stone. Some took limited measures. Many marketed their products aggressively into the fabrication market without providing the warnings, guidance, or product documentation that would have told shop owners and workers what they were actually dealing with.
Litigation that has proceeded across multiple states has produced evidence of that gap. Internal documents, safety data sheets, and industry communications have shown courts and juries that manufacturers were not operating in the dark. That evidence is part of what we use to build cases.
The Arkansas Filing Deadline — Do Not Wait on This
In Arkansas, the statute of limitations for a silicosis personal injury claim is three years from diagnosis — specifically from when you knew or should have known your illness was caused by occupational silica exposure. For wrongful death claims brought by families who have lost someone to silicosis, the same three-year period runs from the date of death.
Here is the thing about three years: building a silicosis case takes real preparation. Identifying all potentially liable manufacturers and employers, working with industrial hygienists and medical experts, obtaining and reviewing employment records and product documentation, and preparing for litigation all require time. We have seen workers in similar situations wait to see how their treatment goes, wait to feel better, wait until they are ready — and run out of time before they ever made a call.
If you have a diagnosis, the moment to start is now. The consultation is free. There is no commitment after it.
What Compensation Can Cover for Fort Smith Workers and Their Families
A successful claim can address the full weight of what this disease has cost you — not just the medical bills, but what it has taken from your life and what it will continue to take:
- Medical expenses — pulmonology care, CT scans and pulmonary function tests, hospitalizations, oxygen therapy, medications, and any future care including lung transplant evaluation
- Lost wages for time already missed due to illness or treatment appointments
- Lost future earning capacity — if silicosis has ended your ability to work in fabrication or any other physically demanding trade, that loss deserves compensation
- Pain and suffering — living with progressive respiratory disease is physically brutal, and the law explicitly allows recovery for that experience
- Emotional distress and loss of quality of life — a diagnosis like this in your thirties or forties steals things that money cannot replace, but the law recognizes those losses as compensable
- Wrongful death damages for surviving family members — loss of financial support, loss of companionship, and funeral expenses
We handle silicosis cases on a contingency fee basis. Nothing out of your pocket unless we win. No upfront fees, no costs billed to you while the case is pending.
Honest Answers to Questions Fort Smith Workers Ask Us
Call Us Today — Free Consultation for Fort Smith and River Valley Workers
If you have been diagnosed with silicosis, COPD, lung cancer, kidney disease, or another condition you suspect is connected to cutting or working with quartz countertops, please reach out to Edward O. Moody, P.A. today.
We represent clients in Fort Smith, Van Buren, Greenwood, Mena, Russellville, and throughout Sebastian, Crawford, Polk, and Pope counties. We are based in Little Rock and we travel for clients when needed. Distance is not a barrier to getting the representation you deserve.
You went to work to build something. You trusted that the job was safe, or at least safe enough. The companies that put those products in your hands without telling you what they were doing to your lungs should be held responsible for that. We have spent four decades making sure companies like that are held accountable.
Call our office or fill out our contact form. There is no fee unless we win, and no obligation after the first conversation.