However, despite warnings from Dow about its health effects, the Dole Food Company, which was using the chemical on its banana plantations in Latin America, threatened to sue Dow if it stopped DBCP shipments. Dow then shipped half a million gallons of DBCP to Dole, much of it reclaimed from other users. Plantation workers who became sterile or were stricken with other maladies subsequently sued Dow and Dole in Nicaraguan courts, alleging that their ailments were caused by DBCP exposure. Under a special law that was passed specifically for DBCP litigation, the Nicaraguan courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded them over US$600 million in damages. When plaintiff lawyers tried to enforce one of those judgments in the United States, the U.S. District Court in Florida held that "the credible and unrefuted medical testimony in this case is that it is factually impossible for what is represented in the Judgment to have occurred," and that due process "donot permit awarding damages in the face of clear scientific evidence of the absence of causation," or, as in this case, "with proof that [the defendants are not at fault." A group of workers then filed lawsuits in the United States, and on November 5, 2007, a Los Angeles jury awarded them US$3.2 million. On July 15, 2010, that judgment was thrown out after the Court presiding over the case found that the claims were part of "a massive fraud perpetrated on the court". On April 23, 2009, a Los Angeles judge also threw out two similar cases against Dole and Dow Chemical due to fraud and extortion by lawyers in Nicaragua recruiting fraudulent plaintiffs to make claims against the company. The ruling casts doubt on US$2 billion in judgments in similar lawsuits.