Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas

Business Week
July 15, 2010

Dole Food Co., the world’s biggest producer of fresh fruit and vegetables, won dismissal of a $2.3 million California jury award to Nicaraguan banana workers who claimed exposure to pesticides.

California Court of Appeal Judge Victoria Chaney, at a hearing today in Los Angeles, threw out the 2007 verdict and the underlying lawsuit, after hearing arguments last week by Dole lawyers that the plaintiffs had lied about becoming sterile because of pesticides used at Dole’s banana farms in Nicaragua in the late 1970s.

“The judgment is vacated” Chaney said, citing “blatant” fraud, active concealment and witness tampering by lawyers in Nicaragua that deprived Dole of its right to gather evidence in the Central American country. “Retrial is not an option.”

Chaney’s ruling follows her order last year dismissing two related cases by groups of purported banana workers before they had gone to trial. She found that the lawsuits were the result of a pattern of “deliberate and egregious misconduct” by lawyers in Nicaragua who had recruited the plaintiffs.

Steve Condie, a lawyer for the Nicaraguans, said he will appeal today’s decision. The judge’s ruling was based on testimony from secret, so-called John Doe witnesses who the plaintiffs’ lawyers weren’t allowed to interview, Condie said after the hearing. Some of those witnesses later admitted they had been paid by Dole, according to the lawyer.

Chaney said in her decision that she wasn’t persuaded by the allegations of bribery.

Protected Witnesses

Scott Edelman, a lawyer for Dole, said after the hearing that the judge had approved the expenses the company paid for the protected witnesses. Chaney allowed Dole to introduce evidence of fraud provided by the anonymous witnesses after the 2007 trial. Dole claimed that the witnesses would be in danger in Nicaragua if their identities became known.

“It’s never been about banana workers,” Edelman said. “This case was brought by fake banana workers.”

At least 16,000 Latin American workers have sued in the U.S. in the past two decades seeking damages from chemical companies that made dibromochloropropane, or DBCP, and growers that used it. Nicaraguan courts have entered more than $2 billion in verdicts against Dole and other U.S. companies. Plaintiffs’ lawyers have tried to enforce some of the verdicts in U.S. courts.

Most of Dole’s records in Nicaragua were destroyed in the aftermath of the Sandinista revolution, opening the door to the fraudulent claims, according to lawyers for the company, based in Westlake Village, California.

The 2007 trial has been the only one in the U.S. by foreign workers claiming sterility from DBCP exposure. Thousands of similar claims from workers in Central American countries are pending in state court in Los Angeles.

The case is Tellez v. Dole Food Co., BC312852, Superior Court of California, Los Angeles County.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-15/dole-banana-workers-jury-award-tossed-due-to-fraud.html