Source: Chris Scott, MEATINGPLACE, 11/11/15


Prospects that Tyson Foods may have convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a $5.8-million jury award over worker compensation raises issues that have challenged lower courts, according to an attorney who attended yesterday’s oral arguments in Washington, D.C.

Patrick Bannon — who co-wrote an article about the class-action lawsuit for Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s blog — told Meatingplace that the two main issues of who can participate in the class-action suit and how a compensation rate was calculated sparked debate in every court that has heard the case so far. 

A federal court in Nebraska in 2013 ordered Tyson to pay nearly $6 million to workers who challenged the policies in class action lawsuit originally filed in 2008. However, a Nebraska Appellate Court this past August ruled in Tyson’s favor after the company challenged the class certification. The ruling came just two months after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Tyson’s challenge to a case that could involve more than 3,300 current and former hourly workers at its Storm Lake, Iowa, plant.

“Tyson’s argument was that not all workers (necessarily) qualified to participate in the class-action suit because of the different jobs they held within processing plant. It wouldn’t be right so split the money among 3,000 people if the duties are (vastly) different,” Bannon explained. “Also, one previous case cited allows for general statistical averages to be used to calculate the class-action award. But the lower court jury didn’t accept the expert’s view on an average and the second expert also didn’t convince the jury about the resulting (award) numbers.” 

Several of the justices didn’t seem clear on which direction they would vote when the issue is decided this summer, Bannon added. 

“I think there’s still hope for Tyson (to win), but it’s very hard to tell,” Bannon said, also noting that he thought the members of the highest court in the land were “tougher on Tyson’s attorney than I expected.”

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