Dole has triumphed in its bid to see two consolidated lawsuits by Nicaraguan banana workers dismissed on the grounds of lawyer misconduct.
Judge Victoria Chaney agreed with Dole that the workers' claims that a pesticide used in the 1970's made them sterile should be dismissed on the grounds of 'deliberate and egregious misconduct' by the lawyers in Nicaragua who recruited the plaintiffs, Bloomberg reported.
'What has occurred here is not just a fraud perpetrated on this court, but a blatant extortion of the defendants,' Judge Chaney said in her summary. 'I cannot in good conscience allow this case to continue.'
Lawyers for Dole had argued during a hearing that lawyers in Nicaragua had recruited poor citizens who had no record of working on banana farms to file complaints, trained them to lie and created false documents and laboratory tests.
Scott Edelman, a lawyer for Dole, said that the ruling would put a 'serious crimp' in further efforts to enforce Nicaraguan damages awards in US courts.
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