TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Supreme Court reinstated a $4-million jury award Thursday to the family of a boy born without eyes, a defect linked to the agricultural fungicide Benlate.
The justices, on a 5-2 vote, reversed an appellate court decision overturning the verdict against Du Pont, which manufactures Benlate, and Pine Island Farms Inc., where Donna Castillo said she was sprayed with the chemical in 1989.
She was seven weeks pregnant when she was soaked while walking beside the "you-pick" tomato and strawberry farm near her home in Miami-Dade County. Her son John was born with severely underdeveloped eyes.
A jury ordered Du Pont to pay 99.5 percent of the award, Pine Island 0.5 percent.
Du Pont, in Wilmington, Del., halted Benlate production in 2001. It has paid out more than $1.7-billion for damages including birth defects and crop destruction.
The 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami had reversed the verdict, ruling that key expert testimony offered on behalf of the family during the 1996 trial was inadmissible. The scientific methodology, the court found, was flawed.
But the Supreme Court found the methodology cited by the experts to be in line with scientists' generally accepted guidelines.
Moreover, the court found, "there was enough direct evidence that Mrs. Castillo was exposed to Benlate to support the jury's verdict against DuPont."
Woman faces charge in man's HIV infection
FORT LAUDERDALE - A woman has been charged with a crime for allegedly infecting a man with the virus that causes AIDS.
Perdita Harris, 31, was charged Wednesday with knowingly transmitting the human immunodeficiency virus to a partner through sexual intercourse, which is a third-degree felony.
Her former boyfriend filed a police report in May after learning he had contracted HIV, which leads to AIDS. Harris, whom he dated for two years, never told him she had the disease, the 44-year-old man said.
According to a police report, Harris was infected in 1994 and married a man who later died of the disease.
