Tyson Foods, INC v Bouaphakeo PDF

Preview

Summary

Case...

Description

Tyson Foods, Inc v Bouaphakeo Student Name: Michael Rouzer Statement of Facts: Peg Bouapakeo worked for Tyson foods, along with multiple others, in the kill, cut, and re-trim departments in their pork processing plant. They were all covered by the Fail Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In this job position, the workers were required to wear protective gear. The exact composition depended on the exact task they were doing. In order to put on and take off this protective gear the employees spent a few minutes not clocked in at their work station. Because of this, Tyson paid overtime of 4 or 8 minutes depending on the employee. The workers sued Tyson in the federal district court because they said that the time it actually took was much longer than just 4 or 8 minutes and they should be compensated with more overtime. Procedural History: Workers filed this suit in class action. Tyson, however, claimed that this could not be considered class action because all of the employees had specific tasks that required different kinds of equipment. The district court concluded that class action was warranted because the simple task of putting on and taking off equipment was done by every employee. Study done showed that each department had different times and they then added those times to each employee to figure out who was working more than 40 hours in a week. The jury awarded the class $2.9 million in damages. Before Tyson paid these damages, they appealed the case to the US court of Appeals where they affirmed the lower courts decision that this was a class-action case. The US Supreme Court agreed to take the case.

Issues: Do the Tyson workers fall under the FLSA collective action provision? The parties do not dispute that the standard for certifying a collective action under the FLSA is no more stringent than the standard for certifying a class under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Calls upon to court to give careful scrutiny between individual questions and common one: 1. Individual questions would be where each member will present evidence that varies from member to member 2. Common question would be where the same evidence will suffice for each member to make a prima facie showing [or] the issue is susceptible to generalized, class-wide proof” Tyson argues that the person specific inquiries predominate the common ones making class certification improper Employees argue that individual inquiries are unnecessary because each employee donned and duffed for the same average time observed. Is statistical evidence derived from a representative sample fair in this case?

Holding: Judgement of Circuit Court of Appeals Affirmed Reasoning: The study done in the first trial could have easily been applied to each individual if they went to court on their own Result/Application:...