PLANT CITY
Farmer Carl Grooms won't let go. He keeps four cases of the "poison" he thinks ruined his strawberry fields in the early 1990s in the back seat of his first car, a 1969 Chevy Chevelle, parked in a dark shed.

It's the DuPont Co. fungicide Benlate DF.

"I'll never get rid of it," Grooms said of the Benlate, "and I'll never forget."

About 15 years have passed since DuPont in March 1991 recalled Benlate DF, once thought to be the most effective and most popular fungicide in agriculture, after complaints of mysterious crops ills trickled into the Wilmington, Del., chemicals giant from around the nation and world.

And it's been nearly five years since DuPont stopped selling Benlate in any of its formulations.

But like the old boxes of Benlate in Groom's dilapidated car, the Benlate problem won't go away.

For DuPont, for the farmers who suffered wilted fields of plants, for scientists trying to fathom an answer, for lawyers litigating in courtrooms from Honolulu to Miami, Benlate is a story without a seeming end, a twisting, confusing, maddening road without equal in the history of American agriculture.

From a torrent of more than 750 lawsuits filed against DuPont for crop damage, DuPont still battles 63 suits, latest figures show. This year, a Miami-Dade jury returned a $113 million verdict against DuPont, the largest Benlate award ever, which was reduced to roughly $55 million to $62 million because of comparative negligence assigned to fern growers. DuPont promises an appeal.

(The only Benlate trial in Polk County happened in 1994 at the 10th Judicial Circuit Court in Bartow. At one time, 18 Benlate cases were filed in the Bartow court. The trial involved six Polk blueberry growers, including former Ledger Publisher Don Whitworth, who sought $5.5 million in damages. The jury ruled against the growers, who later reached an undisclosed settlement with DuPont. The other Polk cases also were settled out of court.)

Despite $1.9 billion in settlements with farmers and legal costs, DuPont maintains Benlate was blameless in crop damage reported by 1,900 growers in 40 states, mostly in Florida.

One company document indicates as many as 8,000 people contacted DuPont with concerns about Benlate.

DuPont declined to comment for this report, referring a reporter to previous statements by the company exonerating Benlate.

"A significant element of the reason to withdraw (Benlate from sale) is that the company is no longer willing to bear the high and continuing costs of defending the product in the U.S. legal system, where factors other than good science can influence outcomes," DuPont said in 2001.

It's a line that enrages farmers, many of whom say they still face the financial aftereffects.

KEN HELLER/ST. PETERSBURG TIMES David Hayes of Eustis, who owns an ornamental plant nursery, received $400,000 from DuPont in the early 1990s for his crop losses.

"To me, it shows a lack of respect for their customers," said David Hayes, 56, an ornamental plant grower in Eustis who blames Benlate for nearly wiping out his operation.

Hayes received $400,000 from DuPont in the early 1990s for his crop losses, but he continued to suffer so-called recropping problems, or lingering damages in soil and plants.

Lawyers say DuPont battles Benlate litigation tenaciously. Don Russo, a lawyer who represented fern growers in the Miami-Dade verdict, said he expects suits to continue to be filed.

Scientists in his cases testifying for growers blamed Benlate on altering the balance of microbes in the soil, leaving behind damaging plant toxins. This, Russo said, may allow growers who settled claims years ago to reopen cases on the basis of new information.

"You're going to see more litigation, and Benlate is going to get bigger. It isn't going away," Russo said. "The cases are only going to bloom. And DuPont is going to have to confront some of this new science."

Steve Cox, a San Francisco lawyer pursuing a civil fraud and racketeering case against DuPont for six growers in Hawaii, said he wants to reopen as many as 19 Florida cases, mostly from fern and ornamental growers, based on new evidence that he said DuPont withheld showing Benlate was contaminated with a powerful herbicide.

"I think they assumed if they fought hard enough, these cases would go away," Cox said. "This is a classic story of a bunch of growers who got defrauded. This is a monument to what can happen when a wealthy company like DuPont throws enough lawyers at you to kill a person."

Steve Lindsey, 52, a Plant City strawberry farmer, blames Benlate for the loss of his family farm. DuPont paid him for damage early on, but never enough for him to catch up to debts, including taxes, he said.

To pay off his debt to the Internal Revenue Service, he sold his share of the farm, which has been in his family since 1933.

Now working for another farmer on the same land, his marriage long ended under the strain of poor finances, Lindsey said he thinks of Benlate every day and, like Grooms, he can't let go.

He said he wishes he could sue DuPont to get justice more than money for his broken life.

"They've got dozens of lawyers on retainer and billions to fight you," Lindsey said. "I'm a small man. How do I fight DuPont?"