DuPont to Appeal Fungicide Case Ruling : Crops: Firm vows to seek removal of judge who ruled it withheld evidence.

DuPont Co., fined $115 million by a federal judge who ruled that the company withheld evidence in a 1993 lawsuit over its fungicide Benlate, vowed Tuesday to appeal the decision and to fight to have the judge removed from the case.

DuPont’s lead attorney in the case, Dow N. Kirkpatrick II, said DuPont provided all required documents to farmers’ attorneys and would have provided more if they had been requested.

Company representatives commented the day after U.S. District Judge J. Robert Elliott of Columbus, Ga., imposed the fines. Elliott said DuPont hid test results to protect itself during the lawsuit, in which growers from four states said Benlate killed their plants.

“DuPont has committed a fraud on this court and this court concludes that DuPont should be, indeed must be, severely sanctioned if the integrity of the court system is to be preserved,” Elliott wrote in his ruling.

Stacey Mobley, DuPont’s senior vice president for external affairs, said, “We will defend ourselves against this attack on our reputation and integrity.” He also said the company has “serious questions about the court’s impartiality” and will pursue its effort to have Elliott removed from the case.

In his ruling, Elliott said DuPont can reduce the penalty to $14 million by taking out full-page advertisements in major newspapers admitting its wrongdoing. But Kirkpatrick said the company maintains it did nothing wrong and will probably make the judge’s call for a public apology part of its appeal.

In the original suit, growers from Georgia, Florida, Michigan and Hawaii sought $430 million for damage to their plants they said was caused by contamination of Benlate with a herbicide. The suit was settled for $4.25 million while a federal court jury deliberated in August, 1993. Later, the growers accused DuPont and its attorneys of hiding test results that indicated Benlate-treated soil was contaminated, and they asked for sanctions against the company.

The Georgia case was the first of about 400 Benlate-related lawsuits to make it to trial.