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Legal Proceedings | 9 Months Ended
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Sep. 30, 2014
Legal Proceedings | 12. Legal Proceedings—Summarized below are litigation matters in which there has been material activity or developments during the three month period ended September 30, 2014. A. DBCP Cases A number of suits have been filed against AMVAC, alleging injury from exposure to the agricultural chemical 1, 2-dibromo-3-chloropropane (“DBCP®”). DBCP was manufactured by several chemical companies, including Dow Chemical Company, Shell Oil Company and AMVAC, and was approved by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“USEPA”) to control nematodes. DBCP was also applied on banana farms in Latin America. The USEPA suspended registrations of DBCP in October 1979, except for use on pineapples in Hawaii. The USEPA suspension was partially based on 1977 studies by other manufacturers that indicated a possible link between male fertility and exposure to DBCP among their factory production workers involved with producing the product. There are approximately 100 lawsuits, foreign and domestic, filed by former banana workers in which AMVAC has been named as a party. Fifteen of these suits have been filed in the United States (with prayers for unspecified damages) and the remainder have been filed in Nicaragua. All of these actions are in various stages and allege injury from exposure to DBCP, including claims for sterility. Except for the cases described below, there have been no material developments in these matters since the filing of the Company’s Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2014. In what has been designated as the remaining Hendler-Delaware cases (involving claims for physical injury arising from alleged exposure to DBCP over the course of the late 1960’s through the mid-1980’s on behalf of about 2,700 banana plantation workers from Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala and Panama – more fully described in the Company’s Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2013), on May 27, 2014, the district court granted defendant Dole’s motion to dismiss the matter without prejudice on the grounds that the applicable statutes of limitation had expired. Then, on August 5, 2014, the parties stipulated to summary judgment in favor of all defendants (on the same grounds as the earlier motion) and the court entered final judgment in the matter. On October 21, 2014 plaintiffs filed an appeal with the U.S. District Court of Appeals. The Company plans to oppose the appeal. Further, in Chaverri, the one Hendler-Delaware case that was filed with the Superior Court of the State of Delaware (as opposed to the United States District Court in Delaware), on October 20, 2014, the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware issued an order affirming the lower court’s dismissal of the action based upon passage of the statute of limitations. Also, in Blanco (Delaware state court matter involving one plaintiff who worked at a plantation in Costa Rica), in response to a motion for summary judgment filed by the Dole defendants on September 27, 2014 (based on expiration of the statute of limitations and inability to prove causation), on October 6, 2014, plaintiff agreed to dismiss the matter in its entirety with prejudice. B. Other Matters In Mark Spence v. A.W. Chesterton Company et al. (an asbestos exposure matter in an Illinois state court in which 46 defendants, including the Company, are named), after being informed that the Company has never used asbestos in either its products or packaging, plaintiff dismissed the matter without prejudice on September 22, 2014. Thus, this matter is now concluded.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for legal proceedings, legal contingencies, litigation, regulatory and environmental matters and other contingencies. + References No definition available. + Details
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