"Judge Throws Out Verdict Awarding Millions To Dole Workers"

"Putting an end to years-long litigation, a judge Thursday threw out a multimillion-dollar jury verdict awarded in 2007 to six Nicaraguan men claiming they were sterilized by a pesticide while working on American-run banana farms.

The six were the last remaining plaintiffs in cases brought in Los Angeles by purported Nicaraguan banana workers against produce giant Dole Food Co., which applied a pesticide banned in the U.S. for possibly causing sterility in men in its Central American plantations in the 1970s.

In an hourlong oral ruling from the bench, Justice Victoria G. Chaney of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal said a "confluence of historical, social, and political factors, and machinations of plaintiff's agents" meant the truth of who actually worked on the banana farms and were harmed by the pesticide may never be known."

Victoria Kim reports for the Los Angeles Times July 16, 2010.