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Banana Workers Lose $2.5 Million Award Over Pesticide Exposure

A California judge has tossed a $2.5 million punitive damages award to five Nicaraguan field workers who say exposure to a pesticide used on Dole Food's banana plantations in the 1970s left them sterile.

Judge Victoria Gerrard Chaney granted Dole's motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, finding no case law endorsing a punitive damage award 30 years after the defendant's misconduct.

Jurors in the Los Angeles County Superior Court awarded the workers $3.2 million in compensatory damages Nov. 5, finding that the pesticide DBCP caused their sterility.

The jury found Dole 80 percent liable and co-defendant Dow Chemical Co., which had manufactured the pesticide, 20 percent.

Eleven days later the jury awarded the workers $2.5 million in punitive damages.

This judge's recent decision affects only the punitive award.

The plaintiffs had argued that it was in California's interest to ensure "a safer environment" for "residents and non-residents," according to the opinion.

But Judge Chaney wrote that the plaintiffs did not explain how punitive damages awarded to foreign nationals "for injuries caused only in Nicaragua would serve any California interest."

Dole Foods said in a statement that it was pleased with the ruling.

"We have always maintained that punitive damages are inappropriate in these cases and would violate fundamental constitutional principles," said Michael Carter, Dole's executive vice president.

Several thousand more claims by foreign plantation workers with similar sterility complaints are pending in the Superior Court.

Carter said Judge Chaney's decision appears to prevent those workers from recovering punitive damages against Dole.

This is the first case to go to trial in the United States involving foreign agricultural workers' claims against Dole and Dow over DBCP.

California banned the use of the pesticide in 1977. According to the plaintiffs, Dole continued to use the product in Nicaragua.

The plaintiffs argued that Dole fraudulently concealed the dangers of DBCP from plantation workers.

Additionally, they said the pesticide never should have been manufactured or marketed due to its toxicity.

But according to Dole, scientific research has demonstrated that exposure to only large amounts of DBCP over extended periods of time can cause sterility.

That exposure would be hundreds of times what its workers faced on the plantations, the company said.

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