SAN JOSE – Four years ago, the president of Jacobs Farm/Del Cabo, Larry Jacobs, received an unfortunate phone call from Whole Foods. The retail giant notified him that it was rejecting the organic dill he had sold the chain because his culinary herb had tested positive for pesticides.

“I said that’s not possible,” Jacobs remembered this week. “I haven’t sprayed pesticides since I got sick spraying pesticides 40 years ago.”

As it turns out, Jacob’s 120-acre herb farm, just north of Santa Cruz in Wilder Ranch State Park, was victim of a hard-to-detect but relatively simple scientific action: Pesticides applied in liquid form to nearby Brussels sprouts later volatilized and carried as a vapor, through wind or fog, to Jacob’s dill.

This week, California’s Sixth Appellate District Court upheld Jacob’s right to sue the pesticide applicator, Western Farm Service, and let stand the $1 million award a jury handed Jacobs two years ago. The ruling becomes final in 30 days.

“We’re glad that the appellate court saw it the way we did,” Jacobs said.

The decision is significant, say agriculture and law experts, because it strengthens the case for organic farmers or anyone else harmed by pesticides to seek legal recourse – even if the pesticide, as it was here, is legally applied.

While state law restricts pesticides from being sprayed on neighboring properties, which is known as pesticide drift, the law doesn’t deal specifically with pesticides