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September 9, 2010 |
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| December 07, 2009 |
By: Review staff |
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Carlos M. Sires, Stuart H. Singer and Carl E. Goldfarb, Boies Schiller & Flexner
It’s not often that a South Florida lawyer finds his work taking him to a field in Costa Rica, plucking a juicy pineapple off a plant, slicing it open and munching on it.
But for Carlos Sires and colleagues Stuart Singer and Carl Goldfarb, it was all in a day’s work as defense counsel for Coral Gables-based Fresh Del Monte on a $1 billion class action case.
The partners at Boies Schiller & Flexner in Fort Lauderdale represented Fresh Del Monte in a long-running, bitterly fought class-action lawsuit brought by a consortium of grocers and consumers.
The suit related to a new, revolutionary pineapple variety called Del Monte Gold, or MD2, that came on the market in the mid-1990s. The sweet, gold-colored fruit quickly became the pineapple of choice offered in supermarkets to this day.
A series of lawsuits were filed over the patent of the popular pineapple and the ownership of the seeds.
First, Fresh Del Monte sued Dole, alleging that Dole improperly acquired the seeds. Then Maui Pineapple Co. sued Fresh Del Monte over the right to grow various pineapple varieties, and Fresh Del Monte sued Maui for patent infringement. Those suits were all settled.
In 2003, the granddaddy of all the cases was filed. Retailers and consumers brought a series of class-action lawsuits against the fruit company that were principally consolidated in the southern district of New York. They alleged that Fresh Del Monte misled the competition into thinking the DMG pineapple was patented when it was actually another variety of pineapple that was patented. The suit alleged Fresh Del Monte did this to forestall competition and that it violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and state antitrust and consumer protection statutes.
Plaintiffs also alleged that Fresh Del Monte had committed fraud on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and had written letters to Costa Rican laboratories ordering them to stop propogating the seeds in order to prevent competitors from coming on the market.
The suit sought more than $300 million in damages, which could be trebled under anti-trust laws. The damages were allegedly caused by Fresh Del Monte charging more for the pineapple they claimed to have a monopoly on.
The lawsuit was extensively litigated for six years. Sires and his co-counsel hired expert economists to testify the plaintiffs had not used a reliable methodology to compute damages. They also traveled to Hawaii, Costa Rica and the Philippines to research the case — including the Costa Rican field where the pineapple is grown.
But lest you envy Sires for his frequent jaunts to Hawaii, consider this: On one trip, he left the hotel only for a deposition, and never even glimpsed the sun or beach.
In a motion limited to 45 pages, Fresh Del Monte’s lawyers moved for summary judgment on the grounds that plaintiffs had failed to establish an appropriate product market, as is required in antitrust cases. In an order entered in September 2009, the judge granted Fresh Del Monte’s motion in every respect, holding that the evidence did not support the claims that Fresh Del Monte impeded competition in the pineapple market.
“We convinced the judge that despite the tens of depositions and thousands of documents produced, in the end, the evidence did not support the claim that Fresh Del Monte had done anything illegal, had not had a fraudulent patent, had not misled people,” said Sires.
Plaintiff lawyer Michael Buckman of Pomerantz Haudek Grossman & Gross in New York declined comment except to say about Sires: “I had a problem with him.”
Responded Sires: “I’m sorry he feels this way, but it was very hard fought litigation, which we believed was without merit.”
Sires, who calls himself the “produce lawyer,” has also been involved in cases involving melons and bananas for Fresh Del Monte, which he has represented for a decade.
“Sometimes I think I should be wearing a grocer’s apron instead of a suit and tie to court,” he said with a laugh.
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