Another homicidal corporation (Dole Foods) is trying to avoid paying for the harm it's inflicted

[marmar]

Dole Uses Judge Attack in Banana Case to Undo $2 Billion Awards
By Edvard Pettersson


June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Dole Food Co. is using a California judge’s finding of a conspiracy hatched by plaintiff’s lawyers and Nicaraguan courts to fend off $2 billion in verdicts against the fruit producer and other U.S. firms for pesticide poisoning.

Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney in Los Angeles ruled that three suits alleging ill effects from Dole’s use of a farm chemical were based on false testimony by coached Nicaraguan men. They alleged banana farming in the 1970s exposed them to a pesticide that left them sterile. The judge threw out two cases awaiting trial, and Dole appealed the one it lost. The company is using Chaney’s ruling to fight paying a $98.5 million Nicaraguan verdict in Miami federal court.

Chaney said she found a systematic effort to defraud Dole and companies including Dow Chemical Co. by U.S. and Nicaraguan attorneys, as well as judges in the Central American country.

“These lawyers used a corrupt judicial system and manufactured evidence to bring judgments to U.S. courts for the U.S. courts to enforce,” said Edwin Smith, a professor of international law at the University of Southern California. Chaney’s findings in a June 17 opinion reinforce U.S. State Department reports that depict Nicaragua’s judicial system as being compromised, he said.

The judge found evidence of an enterprise built on “fraudulent evidence for the creation of judgments that could be brought to U.S. courts” for enforcement against the companies, Smith said. The plaintiffs’ lawyers denied wrongdoing, and a Nicaraguan judge in an interview questioned Chaney’s reliance on secret testimony from Dole witnesses. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aS5ED.ApmVPk

[Peace Patriot]

1. What a great phrase, Marmar--"another homicidal corporation"! And how true!

The list is long, but I immediately thought of Chevron-Texaco, which is trying to evade a multi-billion dollar ruling against them in Ecuador, for creating what has been called the "Rainforest Chernoybal"--the pollution of a vast area of the Amazon with oil sludge and other toxic waste, and destroying the health of thousands of indigenous, as well as killing fisheries and other elements of the environment that the indigenous depend upon. Yet another example (there are so many!) of profiteering run amok. The rich get richer and the poor get...toxic sludge!

[bertman]

2. Same ole same ole. Corporate lawyers, paid-off judges, secret testimony.

Some things never change.

Don't buy Dole.