The chemical boosts the weight of banana harvests by 20%, according to evidence in the six-month trial before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Victoria G. Chaney.
Jurors found that DBCP was defective and that its risks outweighed its benefits. They also found that Dole actively concealed the danger from its own workers. Dow's share of the damages ranged from 20% to 40% of the awards to each worker.
The chemical robbed the workers of their "male sexual identity," argued Duane Miller, the lead counsel for the workers.
The legal struggle over DBCP has run for 30 years and shows how accelerating trade among nations has at times outpaced the ability of legal systems to keep pace.
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. Miller successfully represented those plant workers in lawsuits against the manufacturer.
Monday's verdict came in a lawsuit involving field workers, not production workers. The point at which exposure becomes dangerous to field workers -- through contact with the skin or inhalation -- was a key question in the trial. Jurors were polled individually by the judge Monday, and several verdicts involved 9-3 splits -- the maximum disagreement allowed in civil cases.
In its defense, Dow contended that the chemical was not defective if administered properly, and Dole denied that it had fraudulently concealed the danger from workers, according to court papers.
In the mid-1970s, Dow warned Dole of dangers associated with human contact with the chemical, and ended production, according to testimony. But Dole, according to court papers, threatened to sue if Dow did not honor an earlier production contract. The firm then accepted about 500,000 gallons of the chemical, including quantities that Dow had reclaimed from other users, and sent much of it to banana plantations in Central America.
Dole contended that the application of the chemical was carefully controlled and conducted at night to minimize the hazard to workers.
"They take the position that our clients weren't in the field when they were treated [with DBCP] at night, and when they reported at work in the morning there was little exposure," Miller argued in court. "Our position is that they used 1.4 million pounds of it."
