FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, July 12, 2010

Contact: Crystal Rockwood, Rockwood Communications, cell: 562-682-6482
Crystal@rockwoodcc.com

Dole Banana Case Reaches Pivotal Juncture; This Week’s Decision in Los Angeles Will Have International Implications

LOS ANGELES (July 12, 2010) – The high-profile Dole banana case will reach a key and dramatic development this week, as attorneys for banana workers suing the food giant will argue today that their cases have merit; and, the judge overseeing the proceedings will issue her decision on those claims on Thursday, July 15. The judge’s ruling from the bench could affect thousands of injured men worldwide and numerous cases pending throughout the U.S. against Dole.

Attorneys for both sides will make their concluding arguments today at 2 p.m. in Los Angeles Superior Court’s 111 North Hill Street location in downtown Los Angeles. The proceedings will be before Judge Victoria Chaney in Department 45. The case is Tellez v. Dole Food Co., Inc.

“This week is important for the many, many men who were injured while working or living on banana plantations in Central America,” said Mark Sparks, a Provost Umphrey LLP, attorney who is representing plaintiffs in other, similar cases against Dole. “Based on what Judge Chaney decides this week, the fate of thousands of men in Central America could be forever altered—men who were never even before Judge Chaney, and whose attorney (me) was expressly excluded from secret depositions and hearings.”

The saga began in the ‘70s, when a chemical called dibromochloropropane (DBCP) was found to cause sterility among men. The pesticide, which was used to treat banana root worms, was subsequently banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the late 1970s and Dow stopped making the chemical.

Despite the EPA’s decision to ban the dangerous chemical in the U.S., Dole Food Co. continued to use it widely until the 1980’s in several Central American countries, including Nicaragua where many of the plaintiffs reside. As a result, many more banana workers suffered from sterility over the years.

Several attorneys agreed to help those injured workers and brought suit against Dole and Dow, among others, in various venues throughout the U.S. One of those cases was Tellez, brought by J.J. Dominguez and Duane Miller.  Sparks and his firm, though, never participated in that trial and, in fact, were expressly excluded from the secret proceedings.

Not surprisingly, several Nicaraguans—represented by J.J. Dominguez and Duane Miller—recovered several million dollars when a Los Angeles jury found in their favor after a four month trial in 2007. After losing, the defendants claimed to have “discovered” that some of those who claimed they suffered from sterility had in fact lied about their claims. Although the victors did not lie and had legitimate claims, in a bizarre and amazing turn of events, the entire case was thrown out on behalf of the lies of a well-paid few. Several other cases were thrown out as a result, as well.

In her decision against the plaintiffs, Judge Chaney relied on a tale concocted by attorneys for Dole which suggested that plaintiff’s attorneys—including Sparks who wasn’t even before her on these cases—had conspired at a secret Nicaraguan meeting in March of 2003 to make up facts that would support their claims and allow them to extort money from Dole and Dow. And then in 2008, Judge Chaney made an even more unprecedented order that sealed the names of the witnesses who had blown the whistle on that mythical, conspiratorial meeting. She ordered their identity and testimony sealed as well – leaving plaintiffs attorneys with no means of defending themselves against these wild and outlandish allegations of conspiracy and fraud.  Dole claimed last week to have interviewed 239 witnesses; of all those, only three testified about this alleged conspiracy meeting. 

Today, California sole practitioner Steve Condie will argue that not only should that testimony have not have been sealed, but that the testimony itself should have been called into question and the case against Dole should go forward. Last week, in fact, he showed evidence that Dole’s key witnesses against the plaintiffs had lied about the mythical meeting and were bribed to do so, rendering all of that testimony suspicious at best.  The rampant sealing of identities and testimony, though, prevented exposure of the perjured testimony—bought and paid for by Dole.

Condie argued that Mark Sparks, a Texas lawyer helping banana farm workers suffering from DBCP poisoning in several other cases, was framed in alleged fraud perpetrated by the defendants. In fact, he noted, Dole put its false whistleblower witnesses up in luxury hotels, provided them with free meals and $1,500 a month – more than ten times the average Nicaraguan salary. He also showed evidence that the attorneys who supposedly attended the mythical meeting could not have actually been there. He based that evidence on passports and expert witnesses—none of it refuted by Dole.  As Dole argued—and Judge Chaney found—that all of Nicaraguan is corrupt, it simultaneously paid secret witnesses, culled from 239 interviewees, to invent a meeting to implicate Sparks, his firm, and his cases despite none of those cases being filed anywhere in California, let alone Judge Chaney’s court.   

Please let us know if you’d like more information on these dramatic turns of events.