[Editor's note by Super G] The Oil Drum staff consists of a diverse set of voices. The story that follows is one staff member's perspective. Other perspectives on this case may be posted in the future.

Recently, a fraudulent lawsuit against Dole was dismissed. According to the WSJ,

Court cases get dismissed all the time, but rarely are dismissals as significant as the two lawsuits against Dole Food and other companies that were tossed recently by a California judge. Among other good things, the ruling is a setback for tort lawyers who troll abroad seeking dubious claims to bring in U.S. courts.

The allegations against Dole, the world's largest fruit and vegetable producer, involved banana plantation workers in Nicaragua who alleged that exposure to the pesticide DBPC in the 1970s left them sterile. The only problem is that most of the plaintiffs had not worked at plantations and weren't sterile. In fact, there's no evidence that farm workers at Dole facilities were exposed to harmful levels of the chemical -- which was legal and widely used at the time -- or that the level of exposure they did experience even causes sterility.

I recently visited Ecuador, as a guest of Chevron. Based on what I learned during that visit, it seems to me that the suit against Chevron has a fair number of similarities to the Dole suit. In this post, I will explain why I think the Chevron case is as dubious as the Dole case.