DBCP BANANA WORKER LITIGATION: THE REST OF THE STORY - By: Scott Hendler

On November 2nd, Scott Hendler of HendlerLaw and Mark Lanier of the Lanier Law Firm will ask a Texas court to certify an international class action against Dole and Dow for DBCP related injuries. The complaint contends that Dole used the Dow chemical DBCP on its banana farms without regard to the dangerous effects, failing to properly warn its workers.

Hendler has been involved with DBCP litigation since 1991, and defeated Dole and other defendants in the United States Supreme Court on a critical procedural issue related to the litigation. Well known lawyers such as Mark Lanier of the Lanier Law Firm and Michael Brickman of Richardson, Patrick, Westbrook are joining forces with Hendler’s firm to take on the litigation and Hendler values his clients’ claims against Dole to be upwards of 150 million dollars.

Hendler says the injuries to his clients were the result of conscious disregard by the companies involved, including Dole Foods and Dow. “It’s one of the most egregious punitive damage cases I’ve seen in 20 years of practice,” Hendler said, “and I expect juries to react accordingly.” In a memorandum sent to Dole’s banana farm managers, Dole’s senior management directed them not to bother implementing certain DBCP safe use guidelines recommended by the chemical manufacturer, saying they were “not operationally feasible."

Even though Dole Food was able to convince a Los Angeles Court that some of the Nicaraguan DBCP claims filed at against it were false, thousands of legitimate claims remain, and lawyers are preparing to go to trial on hundreds of cases of damage next year. Hendler, an Austin, TX trial lawyer who represents banana workers from Central and South America who have been rendered sterile from their exposure to the DBCP, says the alleged fraud in Nicaragua was an aberration and is not discouraged by the California ruling.

“A handful of people allegedly took advantage of a nationalistic Nicaraguan law designed to compensate Nicaraguan citizens and the fact that employment records were lost during the Nicaraguan revolution.” Hendler contends that those individuals in Nicaragua accused of impersonating banana workers were actually telling the life stories of his clients who are bona fide banana workers in Costa Rica and Ecuador injured from exposure to DBCP.

Even without a class action, Hendler says he’ll be trying cases against Dole for the next 10 years.

“The rest of the story is that thousands of real life banana farm workers from Latin America who were exposed to DBCP have suffered long enough,” says Hendler “and they’re going to get their day in court.”

More information about these cases is available at The HendlerLaw website.

About the Author

If you have questions or need help regarding a lawsuit for DBCP or other toxic injury, you can visit our site (link below), call us 800.443.6353, or email us at help@hendlerlaw.com .We have years of experience helping people just like you and your family face this difficult time in your life. Scott Hendler, Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Scott-Hendler/39793

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