Two Bellwether Nicaraguan Pesticide-Exposure Cases Found Fraudulent and Dismissed
The pesticide-exposure claims of Nicaraguan banana-plantation workers were dismissed in two cases after a hearing that began April 21, 2009, in a state court in Los Angeles, California. Meija v. Dole Food Co., No. BC340049 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty.); Rivera v. Dole Food Co., No. BC379820 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty.). Additional details about the events leading to the court’s show-cause order and hearing appear in issue 297 of this Update.
The court agreed with Dole Food Co. allegations that Nicaraguan lawyers, seeking to collect millions of dollars in damages from the company, recruited poor men to pose as plantation workers and claim that pesticide exposure caused their sterility. Dole introduced evidence showing a decade-long conspiracy to defraud U.S. companies and perpetuate a massive fraud on the court. Dole alleged that the attorneys intimidated witnesses and paid plaintiffs, showed them videos depicting plantation life, falsified sterility documents, and hid records showing that some of the supposedly sterile men went on to father children.
Dismissing two of the three bellwether lawsuits pending before her court, U.S. District Judge Victoria Chaney was quoted as saying, “What has occurred here is not just a fraud perpetrated on this court, but a blatant extortion of the defendants. I cannot in good conscience allow this case to continue.” Apparently, most of the company’s Nicaraguan records were destroyed in the aftermath of the Sandinista revolution, opening the door to fraudulent claims. The court reportedly said that the plaintiffs’ U.S. law firm was not to blame for the fraud committed by Nicaraguan lawyers; she indicated that she would refer the case to appropriate bar associations and prosecutors.
The allegations arise from dozens of lawsuits involving the pesticide DBCP. A jury awarded six workers more than $5 million in the first such case to go to trial in the United States, and a federal court in Miami, considering whether to enforce a multi-million dollar judgment won by banana workers in a Nicaraguan court, has reportedly stayed the proceedings pending the outcome of the California cases.
Most of the plaintiffs in several of the 40 cases before her dropped out voluntarily after being deposed or undergoing medical exams “that revealed their claims were fraudulent,” the California judge said in her show-cause order, adding that she “became deeply concerned that fraud may be occurring and that it has tentacles that extend to all of the Nicaraguan (pesticide) cases pending before it.” See The Wall
Street Journal Law Blog and Reuters, April 21, 2009; The Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2009; and Bloomberg.com, April 24, 2009..
