Injury from Unsafe Products Causes Sterility
Finding a dangerous product involved, a jury awarded $3.2 million to six Nicaraguan farmworkers who had sued Dole Food Co. Inc., after becoming sterile. The workers proved that the giant food corporation had used the banned pesticide and thereby exposed them to harm.
The chemical DBCP has been banned virtually worldwide. The chemical fights pests that attack the roots of fruit trees, but also stops rabbits from procreating, and allegedly rendered sterile the workers who produced it. DBCP was suspended for most uses in the United States in 1977 after workers at a plant in Lathrop, Calif., were found to have low or zero sperm counts after working with the compound.
Other lawsuits are pending in which thousands of workers allege that they, too, were injured from the use of DBCP on plantations. This case was widely seen as a test of how the U.S. legal system responds to injury inflicted through globalization. Because the harm occurred in Central America, the defendants had argued for years that the trials should take place there, rather than in the United States. Both sides considered the case a bellwether that would determine what sorts of claims would be pursued in the future.
In closing argument it was reported that one defense lawyer argued that the jury should consider the damages of the foreign farm workers by focusing on “their society and where they live" to compensate "in the context of their world and their society." Obviously, this argument appears to place a lesser value on the lives of persons who are not citizens of the United States. Fortunately, the trial judge appropriately instructed the jury not to discriminate against the workers. Overall it appears that these hardworking individuals received a just trial and were not run over by corporate giants.
