A Los Angeles County jury found businesses that make or distribute engineered stone at fault Wednesday for the suffering of a 34-year-old stonecutter afflicted with an incurable disease.

In a decision watched closely by silicosis experts and the stone industry, jurors deliberating at Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown L.A. decided largely in favor of Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez, who was diagnosed with silicosis and had to undergo a double lung transplant after years of cutting engineered stone countertops.

The decision followed deliberations that spanned five days of the multi-week trial. Before the verdict, the two sides in the case had agreed that economic losses for Reyes Gonzalez exceeded $8 million.

The jury decided that other damages — which could include physical pain, mental suffering and emotional distress — amounted to more than $44 million. However, because the jury did not deem the defendants wholly responsible for those damages, they will not be collectively liable for the full amount.

It concluded that Caesarstone USA bore 15% of the responsibility, Cambria 10% and Color Marble 2.5%. The court will ultimately determine how much each defendant must pay.

Reyes Gonzalez is among scores of California countertop cutters who have sued companies like Caesarstone and Cambria after falling ill with silicosis, which is caused by inhaling tiny particles of crystalline silica.

His case was the first to go to trial, according to his attorneys. It tested whether companies that manufacture or distribute slabs of artificial stone, commonly marketed as quartz, could be held responsible for the ravages of silicosis, an ancient disease now emerging among countertop cutters barely in middle age.

Scientists have linked the eruption of silicosis cases among stonecutters to the booming popularity of engineered stone, which is typically much higher in lung-scarring silica than natural stone such as granite or marble. In California, more than a dozen countertop cutters have died of silicosis in recent years. In a recent study of the emerging cases and fatalities, researchers found the median age at death was 46.

Attorneys for Reyes Gonzalez argued that the companies had failed to provide sufficient warning about the dangers of cutting the slabs and that the risks far outweighed the benefits of their products. Gilbert Purcell, one of his lawyers, told the jury that engineered stone has “nasty, nasty risks” that had not been properly disclosed.

“A company should never needlessly cause risk to others,” Purcell said, “and that’s what they did.”

For instance, Purcell argued, Cambria had failed for a decade and a half to warn that silica dust could be an invisible hazard. How can workers avoid breathing dust, he argued, “when you can’t even know you’re breathing it because it’s invisible?”

Lawyers representing companies that make or distribute engineered stone argued that the operators of the Orange County workshops where Reyes Gonzalez worked were to blame. If they had used the proper protections, he would not have gotten silicosis, said Peter Strotz, an attorney representing Caesarstone USA.

“They knew what they had to do. They didn’t do it. … Worst of all, they deceived Mr. Reyes Gonzalez. They led him to believe he would be protected when he was not,” Strotz told the jury. He argued Caesarstone USA had done its part by providing safety information and should not be blamed for the “misuse” of its products.

Cambria attorney Lindsay Weiss said the company had provided warnings, including labels on the slabs themselves, and offered free training to the “fabricators” who cut, grind and polish the material to shape it into countertops.

She held up a sample of its quartz surfacing material to the jury, telling them it was safe. “The problem is when people don’t follow the law when they handle this product,” Weiss said.

And Color Marble, a distributor, argued there was no proof that Reyes Gonzalez had cut or polished slabs sold by its company. The jury found Color Marble liable for negligence — as it did Caesarstone USA and Cambria — but did not deem it liable for other claims for product liability as it had for those firms.

The lawsuit initially targeted a long list of companies, but all but three — Caesarstone USA, Cambria and Color Marble — were dismissed or settled before the jury reached a verdict. Attorney James Nevin, who represents Reyes Gonzalez, said most had “resolved the case pursuant to confidential agreements.”

Strotz, representing Caesarstone USA, declined to comment on the verdict.

Weiss said her client, Cambria, disagreed with the decision. “We think this is not a product issue. It’s a workplace safety issue,” she said. “This is handled safely every single day.”

Raphael Metzger, one of the attorneys representing Reyes Gonzalez, called the decision “a win for public health and occupational safety.”

He grew emotional as he praised the jurors for their work. “Only in America,” he said, “can Hispanic immigrants come here and receive justice — as they have.”

The trial, which stretched more than a month, spotlighted the dangers facing workers like Reyes Gonzalez, who testified that he came to the U.S. from the Mexican state of Veracruz as a teenager to escape poverty. For years, he worked from morning to evening cutting slabs for countertops.

Dust was rampant in the Orange County workshops where he labored, Reyes Gonzalez testified, at times so much that it looked like fog. His mask would grow filthy. Even when he used water while cutting, he said, “a lot of dust would come off” when the liquid had dried.

His wife, Wendy Torres Hernandez, said that when Reyes Gonzalez got his diagnosis, he called her crying. “He was told that there was no cure for it. There was nothing that he could do,” she said.

“I told him we would figure something out to help him, because I couldn’t just let him die,” she testified. Despondent, he told her “that he was going to start planning for his funeral.”

Reyes Gonzalez ultimately became so sick that both his lungs needed to be replaced in a transplant. The surgery may afford him only six more years to live before he needs another set of transplanted lungs — and a doctor testified that if that did happen, he would be unlikely to get a third transplant because of his age.

He will have to take a host of medications and carefully monitor his health until he dies. Because of the medicines he takes, Reyes Gonzalez said he cannot have children, which pains him because his wife adores them. Doctors might find a way for them in the future, he said, but cannot guarantee it.

Lawyers for Caesarstone and other companies focused much of their questioning on members of the Silverio family, who paid Reyes Gonzalez for his work in a string of Orange County workshops. When a co-worker named Guillermo Mora de los Santos took the stand, a defense attorney questioned him about whether the Silverio shops had ever provided trainings on workplace safety or had any “silica control program.”

Mora de los Santos said no. “We didn’t know about that — about that disease,” he said about silicosis.

Weiss, representing Cambria, stressed to the jury that Reyes Gonzalez had described sweeping up dry dust and using compressed air to clean — practices that send dust into the air — and that he wasn’t provided with an adequate mask. Nor was water used properly, she said.

In court, one of the Silverios denied having seen safety information from Caesarstone that included a video on silicosis risks, despite having signed a form saying he had received such materials.

Purcell, in his closing remarks, argued that whatever the Silverios had done or not done could not absolve the defendants. “This chain of safety starts with them.”

In its verdict, the jury had the opportunity to assign a percentage of the total responsibility to “others” besides Reyes Gonzalez and the engineered stone companies. Jurors assigned 70% to “others” and 2.5% to Reyes Gonzalez himself.

The Silica Safety Coalition, an industry group that maintains that engineered stone can and should be cut safely, said the 70% fault attributed to “others” was an acknowledgment of the unsafe practices at his workplace.

“We think the California jury was wrong to blame the slab suppliers for any of Mr. Reyes-Gonzalez’s injuries from his unsafe workplace condition, and we anticipate the verdict will be appealed by one or more parties,” the coalition said in a statement.

Juror Laura Miller, who said she disagreed with most of her fellow jurors in finding the companies liable, said after the verdict that she felt the blame lay with the Silverios. To reach their decisions in the civil case, at least nine of 12 jurors had to agree on the verdicts.

“The employer was using no precautions,” Miller said.

Nevin, one of Reyes Gonzalez’s lawyers, said in a statement that the jury had “rightly rejected” efforts to blame “unsophisticated hirers” who had not been warned of the dangers themselves.

His firm, Brayton Purcell LLP, now represents more than 150 countertop cutters with silicosis who labored at more than 350 shops, it said in a statement. “The problem is the products, not the shops.”

Much of the court case revolved around the kinds of measures needed to protect workers from silica dust from engineered stone, as a string of experts testified about the risks of cutting such slabs. Among them was Dr. Kenneth Rosenman, who testified that Reyes Gonzalez got silicosis despite having used some tools that dispense water because they were “not sufficiently protective.”

“They do not lower the dust level low enough to prevent this severe disease,” said Rosenman, chief of the division of occupational and environmental medicine at Michigan State University.

Another witness for the plaintiff, industrial hygienist Stephen Petty, said that N95 masks would be “bottom of the barrel” protection for engineered stone dust. Even the most protective respirators, which use a tank of clean air, are not a “permanent solution” because workers tend to adjust them, breaking the seal, he said.

Defense attorneys turned to other witnesses, including industrial hygienist Brian Daly, who said that engineered stone can be cut and polished safely. Reyes Gonzalez “would not have developed silicosis had his employer had a program that was protective” and followed workplace safety regulations, Daly testified.

Judge William F. Fahey had excluded testimony that attorneys representing Reyes Gonzalez had sought from Georgia Tech scientist Jenny Houlroyd, saying her study was based on data that were not provided to the court, among other issues. Her analysis had concluded that it wasn’t economically feasible to employ the measures needed to safely cut engineered stone, especially for small workshops.

Artificial stone is “a uniquely toxic product,” and neither “wet methods” nor wearing a mask would make it safe to cut and grind, Houlroyd wrote in a prepared list of her opinions.

Hospitals must promptly report to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health every time they try to collect medical debt from patients, under an ordinance backed Tuesday by county supervisors.

The ordinance, which requires a second vote to be adopted, requires hospitals to tell the county within a month or two of initiating debt collection, which can include making phone calls or mailing letters to seek payment more than 180 days after the initial billing, selling the debt to a collections agency, garnishing wages, seizing a bank account or informing a consumer reporting agency.

The new rules would also require hospitals to report up to four times annually on the medical debt amassed in recent months by their patients and what financial assistance they have offered them. If they fail to do so, they could face fines and legal action.

Public health officials said the rules would help shed light on hospital practices and address a crucial question: Where are the missed opportunities for hospitals to provide financial assistance?

Hospitals are supposed to provide financial aid to patients in need, but “the rub is the implementation,” said Dr. Anish Mahajan, chief deputy director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health. In a survey by the national nonprofit Dollar For, less than 30% of patients saddled with hospital bills they couldn’t afford said they had applied for and ultimately received financial assistance.

Many hospitals make good efforts to offer aid, Mahajan said, but data show “there is just so much medical debt — and that debt is disproportionately carried by poor people.”

Los Angeles County officials estimate that medical debt totaled more than $2.9 billion in the county in 2022, burdening 1 in 10 adults.

The public health department has launched an initiative to quash medical debt, including buying up and forgiving existing debt. In June, it set aside $5 million for a planned agreement with a nonprofit that erases such debts, which county officials estimated could eliminate $500 million of debt for 150,000 residents.

But the county has stressed that it also wants to prevent patients from incurring medical debt in the first place. Mahajan said that by pulling together information under the new ordinance, “we can then understand how hospitals are doing … in having their patients who should get financial assistance actually receive it.”

For instance, the county said it could match up data about patients whose medical bills were sent to collections to see if they might have been eligible for assistance, then reach out to hospitals about their findings.

“The goal is to help hospitals do better,” Mahajan said.

The figures could also help shed light on whether financial assistance is failing to reach particular groups of L.A. County residents, which could help guide future outreach and public education about the aid.

For instance, Mahajan suggested that in some cases, hospitals might have good policies on financial assistance, but some patients may fear seeking such aid amid worries about their immigration status.

Tackling such concerns could involve not just hospitals but other members of the county coalition that has sought to address medical debt, including legal aid and consumer groups, he said.

The mandatory reports could also give health facilities a sense of whether their financial assistance and debt collection practices fall outside the norm, compared with other hospitals in the area. Public health officials reported that hospitals across L.A. County provided more than $600 million in financial assistance in 2021, but more than half of it was from just four facilities — those run by the county itself.

Those safety net hospitals “can’t cover the entire county, and they’re doing the bulk of the financial assistance,” said Dr. Naman Shah, director of the division of medical and dental affairs at L.A. County Public Health. “The reason for this ordinance is that we can do better.”

Dr. Elaine Batchlor, chief executive of MLK Community Healthcare, told the county board that her Willowbrook hospital proactively takes steps to assess whether patients need aid, using software and other tools to check whether they are likely able to afford copays, then writing off the debt if their finances appear shaky.

Such financial tools “are widely available, and they’re not difficult to use,” Batchlor said Tuesday.

L.A. County will also put up a website where the public can peruse aggregate data about medical debt at local hospitals, although it is still determining exactly what information will be posted, Mahajan said.

The Hospital Assn. of Southern California said its members are deeply concerned about medical debt as an issue, but that the organization remains worried about some aspects of the county requirements.

In reaction to hospital concerns, the county has eased some rules surrounding how often reports must be provided, but “there still remain concerns about how voluminous” the data requirements will ultimately be, said Adena Tessler, the hospital association’s regional vice president for Los Angeles County.

For example, Tessler said that in some cases, hospitals might not be able to provide information because it hasn’t been provided by patients themselves. In addition, “the focus on hospitals remains a concern, because it’s just a piece of the medical debt issue.”

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Tuesday that hospitals are a reasonable place to focus initially because “hospital bills comprise the majority of the debt and the largest bills.” Supervisor Janice Hahn added that “the work won’t stop here today” and that the county will be exploring how other entities — including insurance companies and private provider groups — play a role.

“Hospitals are not the sole cause of medical debt,” she said, “but starting there will help us develop a plan.”

Stanford University professor of economics Neale Mahoney applauded the effort, saying he hoped it would expand to other jurisdictions. “Medical debt is a dark corner in the U.S. healthcare system,” he said, and shining a light on it can be “a strong disinfectant.”

The L.A. County requirements would apply only to a small number of hospitals in unincorporated areas — county officials estimated the number at seven, including MLK Community Hospital — but local cities could adopt them to cover their jurisdictions as well. Hospitals will have roughly six months after the L.A. County ordinance goes into effect before failing to turn in the reports becomes a violation.

Tessler, of the hospital association, said that because the rules will be rolled out first in the unincorporated areas, her hope is that government officials will take the time to make sure that the reporting requirements make sense before expanding such rules to other parts of L.A. County.

Ferrer said her department would reassess the burdens of collecting such data in a year. In light of concerns about patient information, she said the portal that hospitals will use to provide information when they try to collect debt from individual patients is compliant with federal law on protecting patient privacy.

Batchlor, in her remarks Tuesday, described helping an uninsured friend diagnosed with cancer get the care she needed, only to recently learn that the woman was again uninsured because “she can now afford to either pay down her medical debt or pay the premiums for her health insurance — she can’t afford to do both.”

The hospital executive said that the “root cause of medical debt is the high cost of healthcare and the failure of health insurance to cover those costs.”

To solve the problem, she said, “we will ultimately need to address these root causes.”

Skateboarders call it “pumping,” and it’s a skill that both Olympic medalists and aspiring thrashers use to build launch speed from what seems like thin air.

But what separates the steeziest pro from the sketchiest beginner is the years’ worth of practice it takes to develop the know-how to execute the cleanest pump — or at least that was the case until now.

In a paper published Monday in the journal Physical Review Research, scientists have revealed the secret of achieving serious airtime.

With a bit of coding, researchers were able to describe the optimal technique for pumping — a tactic where skateboarders crouch down low momentarily and then push their body upright on inclines. To get the highest jump, they need to do it once as they descend into the bowl, and then again as they shoot back up toward the sky.

The trick is knowing when and where to execute the maneuver.

“Pumping is the foundation of skateboarding in skate parks,” said professional skater Haden McKenna, during a morning session at the Venice Beach Skatepark. “You build off of that and learn tricks. Then the pumping just becomes something in the back of your brain.”

However, the likeliest users of the researchers’ perfect pump equation are non-humans.

After skateboarding’s Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games, a research arm of the Japanese government reached out to Shigeru Shinomoto, a scientist at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Japan. The organization had wondered if it was possible to build a skateboarding robot that could compete in the X Games.

The robot is still a ways off — right now it’s more like a toy that rides back and forth on a mini half-pipe — but the researchers discovered that the mechanics for good skateboarding technique can be surprisingly simple (well, at least compared to the complex fluid dynamics and neuroscience that they’re normally working on).

“It’s just this cute little project which became much bigger than we expected,” said Florian Kogelbauer, an author on the paper and a mechanical engineering professor at the public university ETH Zürich. “People like it — it’s a fun topic. It’s easy to explain, but some serious math and computational work went into it.”

To test their calculations, study authors recruited an expert skater with over a decade of experience, and a novice with just two years under their belt. They told the skaters to catch as much air as possible on a half-pipe erected in a research lab.

The result: The pro much more closely matched their calculated optimal motion than the amateur. (Ideally the skater would pop up instantaneously, but the researchers conceded that humans lack the unlimited muscle strength to do this — plus it would send the skater flying off their board.)

“The experiment seems to agree well,” said Frank Feng, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Missouri who was not involved with the paper, but studied similar motions in half-pipe snowboarding.

Feng said the simple physics model gets researchers most of the way there, then the computer optimization is able to account for complexities that the physics equations can’t handle.

While the study was mostly just for fun, it snowballed into a fairly big project, and ended up getting published in one of the world’s premier physics journals. Part of the reason is that it may have some serious implications for how to get robots to move effectively without face-planting all the time.

It could help human skateboarders, too. Feng said the results could be used as a straightforward guide to help skateboarders train.

However, some question whether skaters would be able to use the information in the moment.

“This graph, showing the mass going up, is very helpful for somebody that can understand that,” said pro skater McKenna, who was not involved in the research. “But when you’re teaching kids and you’re trying to teach somebody that’s focused in the moment of skateboarding, they’re not going to be able to bring math into the equation.”

Also, out in the complex terrain of the park, the technique gets a bit more nuanced than a simple model the physicists developed. You need to flow as “one with the wall,” said McKenna. “Like what Bruce Lee says, ‘Be like water.’”

Skateboarder Greyson Godfrey, 20, of Rancho Santa Margarita drops into the bowl at Etnies Skate Park Lake Forest.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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While the researchers’ optimal solution may not always be the best suited for real-world conditions, it does help to illustrate the physics behind the technique.

Studio Gutierrez, who teaches skateboarding as a sports instructor to middle schoolers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, finds understanding the science helpful for new skaters. “I explain it to them in physics motions,” he said. “The more motion, the faster you go, the higher you get.”

The physics works similarly to how ice skaters increase the speed of their spinning in the Winter Olympics, said Kogelbauer. They start out spinning slow with their limbs extended outward. Then, they tuck their arms and legs in, causing them to spin faster.

Skateboarders also gain speed by using this technique on curved surfaces.

When a skateboarder hits the circular section of the half-pipe, they start crouched down, positioning their center of mass further from the center of rotation above their head. As they climb the curved ramp, they pop up and bring their center of mass closer to the center of rotation, and they speed up.

While the pumping paper is one of the first to capture the physics of pumping, its authors aren’t the only ones studying the motion of skateboarding.

Google has also taken a stab at a more complex understanding with its Project Skate. It’s using AI to identify different tricks and motions — but AI requires a lot of computing power that many researchers who aren’t Google don’t have access to.

“They have [essentially] unlimited resources. If they want to, they can take a new server farm and then run trajectories as much as they want.” said Kogelbauer. “That’s what Google does. We’re not Google.”

If you’d like to study pumping physics on your own, you can tune in to the Paris Olympics. The women skateboarders are scheduled to compete in the park event (as opposed to the street event, which has fewer curved surfaces for pumping) Tuesday morning. The men are scheduled for Wednesday.

McKenna has always seen skating more as an art form and community than a sport, but he’s stoked to watch nonetheless. “When I was a kid, which doesn’t seem that long ago, skateboarding was a crime, literally,” he said. “Now we’re winning gold medals in the Olympics.”