Supreme Court Decision Alert - March 23, 2016

Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued one decision, described below, of interest to the business community.

Class and Collective Actions—Standard for Certification

Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, No. 14-1146

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), a court may certify a suit for damages as a class action when "there are questions of law or fact common to the class" that "predominate over any questions affecting only individual members." Similar certification standards apply when a plaintiff seeks to certify a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Yesterday, in a highly anticipated decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the certification of an FLSA collective action where the evidence tying class members together was a study of a representative sample of similarly situated workers.

In this case, a group of hourly workers filed suit against Tyson alleging that Tyson failed to compensate them fully for time spent donning and doffing protective equipment and walking to and from their work stations. The district court certified the case as a class and collective action before trial. At trial, plaintiffs presented a study by Dr. Kenneth Mericle that estimated how long the average employee took for donning and doffing activities. Plaintiffs also introduced a study by another expert that estimated the amount of the class's uncompensated work, which revealed that hundreds of class members did not work overtime and therefore were not injured. The jury awarded the class $2.9 million, significantly less than plaintiffs' expert recommended. Moving to decertify the class after trial, Tyson argued that Mericle's averaging approach improperly assumed away large differences in the amount of time it took class members to don and doff equipment. The district court denied Tyson's motion, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

In an opinion by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court affirmed the class-certification ruling. The Court held that the "the central dispute" is whether "it can be assumed that each employee donned and doffed for the same average time observed in Mericle's sample." The Court explained that this assumption was proper because, under the Court's FLSA decision in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946), each class member could have relied on Mericle's study "to establish liability if he or she had brought an individual action." In reaching this conclusion, the Court declined to adopt a "broad and...