Dole must pay $2.5 million to farmhands - The verdict on behalf of five Nicaraguan banana harvesters punishes the giant food grower for using a pesticide that had caused sterility.

A Los Angeles jury ordered Dole Food Co. on Thursday to pay five Nicaraguan banana plantation workers $2.5 million as punishment for concealing the dangers of a pesticide that rendered them unable to have children.

The verdict, which awarded far less in punitive damages than some observers expected, was hailed as a victory by attorneys on both sides. It follows a Nov. 5 jury award of $3.2 million in compensatory damages.

The five-month trial marked the first time a U.S. jury had found Dole liable for its conduct outside of the United States, and may pave the way for future judgments. Some 6,800 other workers have filed suit over Dole's use of the pesticide DBCP, which has been banned worldwide.

Dole attorney Rick McKnight said the verdict was "a huge defeat" for the workers. "It doesn't even pay their costs, much less their bills," he said.

Overall, the workers were awarded $5.7 million from jurors who found that the Westlake Village-based corporation acted fraudulently when it sent workers into its Nicaraguan fields without warning them that the pesticide had sterilized California plant workers.

Duane Miller, the field hands' attorney, said the verdict sends an important message to Dole, which employs 75,000 workers worldwide and describes itself as the nation's largest grower of fruits and vegetables.

"It lets [Dole] know that they're accountable for what they do, even if they do it south of our border," Miller said. "Our reputation as a country is partially dependent on the reputations of our corporations doing things overseas."

The Nicaraguan lawyer for the workers, Antonio Hernandez Ordenana, said his clients were "not trying to enrich themselves."

"What really matters is that Dole sterilized these peasants and thousands more humble Nicaraguan peasants, and in the rest of Central America, and we proved it. That is what counts, and I'm proud of it," Ordenana said.

To some legal observers, the award was surprisingly low.

"Dole got out of this very cheaply," said USC law professor Clare Pastore. "It had the potential to be a blockbuster case, and it didn't turn out that way." Pastore said the relatively small verdict may "dampen the hope of future plaintiffs."

During the trial, Dole's lawyers urged jurors not to hold the sins of the "old Dole" from 1977 against the "new Dole" of today. The company, McKnight said, now emphasizes worker and environmental safety.