BUSINESS BRIEFING / COURTS

A California judge dismissed two lawsuits by purported Nicaraguan banana plantation workers against Dole Food Co. of Westlake Village and other companies on grounds of fraud and attempted extortion.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney ruled after hearing three days of testimony that detailed a scheme to recruit men who would claim they were rendered sterile by exposure to a pesticide in the 1970s.

The claims were facilitated by a Nicaraguan law passed to penalize foreign companies, Chaney said. Some of the plaintiffs were men who denied their own children to claim that they were sterile, she said.