Yes, you can still have a claim

Working around concrete and stone dust for years without real protection does not automatically become your fault because you kept showing up.

That matters in Watertown, where overnight security guards on construction sites, cement yards, and industrial projects often end up doing a lot more than "watching the gate." You walk the site. You check buildings under renovation. You sit near saw cutting, grinding, demolition, and cleanup. The dust hangs in the air all damn night, especially when doors stay shut in winter and ventilation is lousy.

If that turned into silicosis, workers' comp is usually the first lane.

But it may not be the only one.

Workers' comp is not the whole story

South Dakota workers' comp can cover an occupational disease tied to the job. That helps with medical care and wage loss.

What it usually does not do is let you sue your direct employer for pain and suffering.

A third-party claim is different. That is where this gets serious.

If a general contractor, subcontractor, property owner, equipment company, or outside dust-control vendor created the exposure or failed to use required silica protections, you may have a claim outside workers' comp against that separate party. On multi-employer worksites, that is common. One company cuts concrete. Another runs cleanup. Another controls site safety. Another hires security and pretends the guard was never in the hot zone.

That finger-pointing is standard.

"I knew the dust was bad" does not end the case

Most people with long-term dust exposure did not file a formal complaint on day one. They needed the paycheck. They got handed a paper mask, or nothing, or were told the area was "fine." On an overnight shift, there may be no safety manager around, no union steward nearby, and no witness willing to say what the site really looked like at 2:30 a.m.

That does not kill the claim.

South Dakota uses a modified comparative fault system with a 51% bar, and the state talks in terms of slight versus gross contribution. In plain English: if your fault is enough to push you past the line, recovery can be blocked. But in a silica case, "you kept working there" is not the same thing as "you caused the dangerous exposure."

If contractors failed to control dust, failed to isolate cutting areas, failed to provide proper respirators, failed fit testing, or let you patrol active work zones without protection, their share can be a lot bigger than yours.

No witnesses? Then paper becomes your witness

Silicosis cases are rarely won by one dramatic eyewitness.

They are built from a trail.

Here is what usually matters most:

• site safety plans, OSHA logs, air monitoring records, shift schedules, contractor emails, badge access data, medical imaging, pulmonary test results, and job descriptions showing where you actually had to go at night

OSHA silica rules matter here. An OSHA violation does not automatically hand you a check, but it can be powerful evidence that a contractor or subcontractor ignored known safety requirements. If a company was supposed to use wet cutting, local exhaust ventilation, restricted access, respirators, training, or exposure monitoring and did not, that helps show negligence.

And if the contractor now says, "We provided protection," the obvious question is: what protection, exactly?

A dusty disposable mask tossed in a gang box is not a properly administered respiratory protection program.

General contractor versus subcontractor is where the fight usually gets ugly

On a Watertown project, the general contractor may claim the concrete sub controlled the dust. The concrete sub may say the guard worked for someone else. The property owner may say site safety was delegated. Everybody tries to become invisible.

But on multi-employer worksites, more than one company can carry responsibility.

If the general contractor controlled scheduling, site access, and safety rules, it may be on the hook.

If the subcontractor created the silica cloud by cutting, grinding, drilling, or sweeping dry dust without controls, it may be on the hook.

Sometimes both.

This is especially true when an overnight guard was expected to remain on site while active dust-producing work, cleanup, or enclosed-area settling was still happening.

The fact that you were "just security" can actually help prove exposure

Security guards are often treated like they were outside the operation.

That is nonsense.

Your rounds may have taken you through parking structures, renovation corridors, boiler rooms, stair towers, and loading areas where concrete dust collected. If you were checking doors, motion alarms, or equipment rooms near active work, that exposure counts. If your shack or desk was next to a cutting area and dust coated your clothes every shift, that counts too.

In a place like Watertown, winter conditions can make indoor dust worse. South Dakota weather can swing from 50 degrees to blizzard conditions in hours, which means doors shut, heaters run, and airborne dust gets trapped instead of blowing off.

What to gather now

Start with the boring stuff. It wins cases.

Save your work schedules, old pay stubs, names of contractors on site, photos of dusty areas, texts about cleanup or masks, incident reports, and anything showing where you spent your shift. Get your chest imaging and pulmonary records lined up by date. Write down every site in Watertown where you worked and what kind of concrete or stone activity was happening there.

If nobody "saw" the exposure, the pattern still tells the story. Night after night. Year after year. Same dust. Same lungs. Same contractors now acting shocked.