Last week, a Santa Monica, California jury assessed a $47,035,380 verdict against Dal-Tile Distribution, LLC and Dal-Tile, LLC in a lawsuit brought by the family of Wilmer Ruben Martinez Paredes, a countertop fabrication worker who died at age 41 after developing artificial stone silicosis, silicosis-linked rheumatoid arthritis, and an autoimmune disease. The jury awarded $2,035,380 in economic damages and $45 million in non-economic damages. It found both Dal-Tile entities liable for negligence, product liability design defect, and failure to warn, and assigned each entity 3% of fault. Martinez Paredes' former employers were found 70% at fault, and four other defendants that had already settled, including Caesarstone and Cambria, were each assigned 6%.
The case is the fourth U.S. trial over artificial stone silicosis and the third to result in a plaintiff verdict, according to Brayton Purcell LLP, which represented the family. The firm said Dal-Tile began distributing crystalline silica artificial stone in 2006 and did not add a warning label until 2023, and that the company began manufacturing a lower-silica alternative product in 2025 while continuing to sell its original line. Dal-Tile was represented by attorneys from Foley Mansfield.
The verdict follows California's expanding surveillance of engineered stone silicosis cases and comes as Cal-OSHA considers emergency rulemaking to restrict fabrication of artificial stone containing more than 1% crystalline silica. It adds to a broader pattern in which environmental and product liability verdicts are becoming a recurring input for companies modeling contingent liability, and it lands squarely on distributors as well as manufacturers, reinforcing how compliance failures further down a supply chain are increasingly reaching the companies that distribute the product.
