Legal News

In the wake of Chaney's dismissal, DBCP = Don't Bother Claiming Pesticide (Exposure)

By Richard Binder

The unraveling of multimillion-dollar Los Angeles cases alleging that Nicaraguan men had been sterilized by pesticide exposure is now threatening to upend hundreds of other claims in U.S. courts, as judges examine charges that plaintiffs' lawyers orchestrated an extraordinary international fraud.

Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney's dismissal in the Nicaraguan case has already become a focal point in a federal court in Florida, where a judge is considering whether Dole and four other multinational fruit and chemical firms should pay $97 million awarded to 151 plaintiffs by a court in Nicaragua in 2005. Those cases have been on hold since early this year, when the Florida judge decided to await the outcome here before taking further action.

Litigation over DBCP, the pesticide in question in these cases, has become something of an international industry in recent years, with U.S. lawyers competing for clients abroad with the goal of getting U.S. courts to try their cases or enforce foreign judgments.

Full story here.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on July 13, 2009 (boomark / email).