A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Thursday dismissed two lawsuits filed against Dole Food Company Inc. by Nicaraguan banana plantation workers who claimed they were made sterile three decades ago by a banned pesticide used on its banana farms.

During a three-day hearing, attorneys for the Westlake Village produce company argued that two attorneys involved in the cases, an L.A. sole practitioner and a Nicaraguan lawyer, developed a scheme to recover millions in damages by recruiting Nicaraguan men who had never worked on the banana farms to make fraudulent sterility claims.

The two lawsuits, dismissed by Judge Victoria Chaney, included allegations that banana workers were made sterile by the pesticide DBCP, which was banned in the U.S. in 1977 after it became know that it could harm human health.

“She found that there was widespread fraud in the Nicaraguan DBCP cases, and the plaintiffs and lawyers had perjured themselves, submitted falsified documents to the court,” said Andrea Neuman, an attorney at L.A. powerhouse Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP who presented Dole’s case alongside partner Scott Edelman.

Dole was hit with a $3 million judgment in 2007, which Chaney later reduced to $1.5 million, after a jury found the company liable for making five Nicaraguan banana workers sterile through the exposure to BCDP. Dole is appealing the judgment.