Reacting to a recent ruling by a Los Angeles superior court judge, Westlake Village, Calif.-based Dole Food Co. Inc. hopes to reverse $2 billion in verdicts against it and other U.S. companies for pesticide poisoning.
On June 17, superior court judge Victoria Chaney dismissed with prejudice two lawsuits against Dole by Nicaraguan laborers claiming that the
pesticide dibromochloropropane, or DBCP, made them sterile while working on Dole-contracted banana farms in the 1970s.
Chaney ruled that the plaintiffs and their attorneys had engaged in a long-running conspiracy to commit fraud, even using threats of violence against Dole witnesses to suppress the truth. A third action, lost by Dole and co-defendant, Midland, Mich.-based Dow, in 2007, also was found by Chaney to be “built on somebody’s imagination, a case that was put together by smoke and mirrors.”
“In truth, there is simply no science to support the allegation that DBCP caused sterility to Nicaraguan banana workers,” Michael Carter, Dole’s executive vice president and general counsel, said in a release.
Now, according to Bloomberg.com, Dole is using Chaney’s ruling to fight a $98.5 million verdict in Miami federal court. Chaney’s ruling eventually could affect judgments in 32 lawsuits in Nicaraguan courts since 2002 totaling, $2.05 billion against Dole and manufacturers of DBCP.
According Bloomberg, U.S. plaintiffs’ lawyers not part of the California pesticide litigation asked a federal court to enforce the judgment against Dole and Dow in the Miami case. However, U.S. District judge Paul Huck put that case on hold pending the outcome of the Los Angeles court decision.
“I’m not prepared to say federal courts will take judge Chaney’s order as gospel,” Edwin Smith, a professor of international law at the University of Southern California, told Bloomberg. “But no federal court in its right mind would refuse to consider the state court’s questions with regard to fraud.”