Brayton Purcell partner, James Nevin, published in Daily Journal

NOVATO, Calif., June 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 11, 2024, Brayton Purcell partner James Nevin and Raphael Metzger, founder of Metzger Law Group were published in the Daily Journal. The Daily Journal is a legal publication providing California lawyers with the news and information they need.

The article, titled A LICENSE TO KILL IS NO SOLUTION, focuses on the rising epidemic of the deadly disease, silicosis, caused by exposure to silica dust during the fabrication of artificial stone products.

As stated in the article, "Jim Hieb, chief executive of the stone industry trade association, suggests that licensing stone countertop fabrication shops will prevent severe illness and death to thousands of young Hispanic immigrant workers from exposure to artificial stone dust.

Stone dust has been known since ancient times to cause scarring of the lungs, a disease that is now known as silicosis. Artificial stone, which has been sold in the US for the past 25 years, contains the highest amount of silica (about 95%) of any product in commerce. As a result, engineering controls such as wet processing tools and respirators are not effective in preventing disease. This new product is claiming the health and lives of thousands of workers worldwide, with Los Angeles being the epicenter of the new silicosis epidemic in California.  

The manufacturers of artificial stone blame the illness and deaths of young workers on "unscrupulous" Los Angeles employers and Cal-OSHA's failure to enforce existing regulations – not their deadly product. They seek to persuade the County Board of Supervisors to require stone fabrication shops to be licensed and Cal-OSHA to enforce regulatory compliance, rather than to ban the deadly products as Australia has done. However, a license is not a solution to the problem, but is merely a ploy to allow the deadly products to remain on the market so manufacturers can continue to reap billions of dollars in profits while their products continue to sicken and kill young immigrant workers."

Mr. Nevin and Mr. Metzger go on to state, "While artificial stone countertops can theoretically be fabricated safely, the cost of doing so is prohibitive. Dr. Jenny Houlroyd, a research scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, recently issued a report titled "Economic Feasibility of Complying with the OSHA Silica Standard in the Cut Stone Industry." In this report, she calculated that the initial investment cost for a fabrication shop to install the equipment and implement the protocols to make fabrication safe for workers is $3,475,211, and that the annual cost of maintaining the equipment and implementing the protections is $637,691.

Most fabrication shops are small mom-and-pop family businesses that employ a few workers and have annual gross revenues of about $300,000. While it is theoretically possible to make artificial stone fabrication safe, Dr. Houlroyd's study shows that it is economically impractical, indeed impossible, to do so. Her report validates the conclusion of the Australian Industrial Hygiene Association that fabricating artificial stone countertops cannot be made safe. That is why Australia banned these products and the Board of Supervisors is considering banning these deadly products in Los Angeles County."

In conclusion, that argument is made that "The solution to the problem is not a licensing program. The product is too deadly to be used safely. The Board of Supervisors should so conclude and ban all artificial stone products in the County, just as these products have been banned in Australia. That will prevent even more young, immigrant workers from suffering and dying from this deadly new fashion product."

To read the full article, please click here.

Raphael Metzger is the founder of the Metzger Law Group, a boutique law firm in Long Beach that sues chemical companies for poisoning and killing workers. James P. Nevin is a partner at Brayton Purcell LLP, an occupational disease and catastrophic injury plaintiffs law firm in Novato, California. Together they represent hundreds of Hispanic immigrant stone countertop fabricators who have been diagnosed with silicosis and have received or are hoping to receive lung transplants to save their lives.

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SOURCE Brayton Purcell LLP