By Joel Russell Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Los Angeles Business Journal

Dole Food Co. has announced a definitive agreement to settle 38 lawsuits from farm workers who alleged injury from exposure to the pesticide DBCP.

The agreement covers five lawsuits in the United States and 33 in Nicaragua, where the exposure allegedly occurred more than 30 years ago.

Banana plantation workers have claimed that they were made sterile by exposure to the pesticide, which Dole continued to use even though it was banned in the United States. However, many of the plantation workers’ lawsuits were dismissed when the judge in the case concluded that many sterility tests were faked and some Nicaraguan plaintiffs had been recruited and had never even worked on a banana plantation. Nonetheless, other lawsuits continued.

Read more at: Dole Settles Nicaragua Lawsuits