Domingo Castro Alfaro, a Costa Rican resident and employee of Standard Fruit Company, and eighty-one other Costa Rican employees and their wives brought suit against Dow Chemical Company and Shell Oil Company. The employees claimed that while they were working on a banana plantation in Costa Rica for Standard Fruit Company, they suffered personal injuries as a result of exposure to Dibromochloropropane (DBCP). DBCP is a pesticide manufactured by Dow and Shell and allegedly furnished to Standard Fruit, an American subsidiary of Dole Fresh Fruit Company that is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The employees exposed to DBCP allegedly suffered several medical problems, including sterility.

After the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned DBCP in the United States, Shell and Dow apparently shipped several hundred thousand gallons of the pesticide to Costa Rica for use by Standard Fruit. Alfaro sued Dow and Shell in Texas in April 1984, alleging that handling DBCP caused the employees serious personal injuries for which Shell and Dow were liable under the theories of product liability, strict liability, and breach of warranty. Under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, the defendants argued that Texas was not a convenient forum in which to litigate the case.
Should the court grant the defendants' motion to dismiss? Was the conduct of Dow Chemical and Shell Oil ethical? Was Standard Fruit's use of the U.S.-banned pesticide ethical? Were the defendants arguing inconvenient forum to avoid a jury trial and Texas laws regarding personal injury and wrongful death? If so, is that ethical? If goods are not consistent with some sets of standards but are not dangerous, is it ethical to sell them? If they are dangerous, how dangerous is too dangerous? Should it matter whether consumers in a developing country cannot afford products meeting higher but more expensive Western standards?