Contact with benzene by breathing it, swallowing it, or absorbing it through the skin.

Benzene is a colorless, highly flammable chemical found in crude oil, gasoline, industrial solvents, and some manufacturing processes. Exposure can happen all at once at a high level, such as after a spill or vapor release, or in smaller amounts over time at work or near contamination. Short-term exposure may cause dizziness, headaches, skin or eye irritation, or unconsciousness at very high levels. Long-term exposure is more serious because benzene has been linked to blood disorders and cancers, including leukemia.

For an injury claim, the key questions are usually how the person encountered benzene, how much was involved, and whether medical evidence connects the exposure to the illness. That often means looking at work records, air monitoring, safety data, medical testing, and whether an employer, property owner, or manufacturer failed to warn or protect against a known hazard. In a workplace case, the claim may involve workers' compensation; outside work, it may lead to a personal injury or toxic tort claim.

In New York, latent illness cases often turn on CPLR 214-c (1986), which measures the filing deadline from discovery of the injury rather than the date of first exposure in many toxic-substance cases. That timing rule can matter in benzene cases because blood cancers and related conditions may not appear until years later.