Judge to return from appellate court for Dole case

LOS ANGELES — The judge who ruled there was massive fraud in a lawsuit against Dole Foods will return from her new appellate court assignment to preside over further proceedings in the contentious litigation.

Ronald George, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, granted a request by Dole attorneys Friday to have appellate Justice Victoria Chaney handle the next hearing in the interest of “judicial economy.”

Lawyers said Chaney’s background in the case would save another judge from having to catch up.

In June, Chaney dismissed a lawsuit against Dole that she said was based on a huge fraud designed to extort billions of dollars in claims for Nicaraguan men who claimed they were rendered sterile by exposure to pesticides.

Testimony showed many of them were not sterile nor had they worked on the Dole banana plantations.

Since that ruling, Dole has petitioned an appeals court to dismiss yet another case based on the same evidence. The company claims that a $1.6 million judgment awarded before the alleged fraud was uncovered should be dismissed.

The appeals court sent the case back to Judge Chaney with an order to have the plaintiffs show cause why their case should not be dismissed based on the fraud uncovered in the other case.

Meanwhile, the six Nicaraguan men who stood to collect the $1.6 million signed up a new attorney this week who filed papers alleging it was Dole, not the men, who defrauded the court.

Attorney Steve Condie claimed Chaney’s ruling was based on a flawed procedure in which the identities of many witnesses were kept secret and plaintiffs’ lawyers did not get to cross-examine them.

Dole attorney Theodore Boutrous Jr. said many of the “John Doe” witnesses who testified on videotape were cross-examined by plaintiffs’ lawyers. Their identities were not publicly disclosed because they feared for their lives.

“He has completely misunderstood the proceedings that took place before Judge Chaney,” Boutrous said.

Condie said he had studied enough to conclude the six men had a valid claim.

Even if these six men tested sterile, that doesn’t mean that they ever worked on a farm or that they have been sterile since the late 1970s,” Boutrous said. “In fact, there is evidence that these … plaintiffs were coached on how to impersonate banana workers.”

The cases stem from use of the pesticide DBCP on Dole-operated banana farms in Nicaragua in the 1970s. The chemical was subsequently banned for use in the United States after claims that men were being rendered sterile by exposure to it.

Records from the farms were destroyed during the Sandinista revolution, and the judge noted it was impossible to track who actually worked there and whether they had any exposure to the pesticide.

No date was immediately set for the hearing before Chaney. Another related case is pending in Florida.