Lawsuit Documentary Begets New Lawsuit

Dole Food has filed a defamation suit in Los Angeles against two Swedish filmmakers whose documentary chronicles a lawsuit alleging that workers in Nicaragua were rendered sterile after being exposed to the pesticide DBCP on Dole's banana farms. In 2007, an L.A. jury awarded $5.8 million in damages to Nicaraguan workers in that case. But in April, a California judge threw out two similar cases against Dole after finding that the plaintiffs and their lawyers had committed a "heinous and repulsive" scheme of pervasive fraud.