Supreme Court Blocks Big Corps From Derailing Class-Action Lawsuits



Susanne.Posel-Headline.News.Official- tyson.class.action.supreme.court_occupycorporatismSusanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Media Spokesperson, HEALTH MAX Brands

 

The US Supreme Court upheld the rights of several thousand plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit brought against Tyson Foods that cost the company $6 million in awards to employees at one of their pork-processing plants.

The class-action lawsuit had 3,300 plaintiffs who cited improper compensation “for the time” spent outfitting themselves in required protective gear; as well as the time taken walking to their stations.

Tyson argued in court that the workers “should not have been able to use statistical averages to prove that they were not paid what they were due” and that they employees ultimately could “not prove how much time they spent putting on their protective clothing”, but rather relied on averages and estimates of time.

And it was the company’s contention that the legislative branch of our government intervene in class-action lawsuits; specifically in making sure less of them could be filed.

In contrary, the Court used a 70 year old precedent that states “when the company has kept poor records of the time required for the tasks required of workers the workers are allowed to use statistics to calculate the lost time.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy said: “That’s good enough. A representative or statistical sample, like all evidence, is a means to establish or defend against liability. If the sample could have sustained a reasonable jury finding as to hours worked in each employee’s individual action, that sample is a permissible means of establishing the employees’ hours worked in a class action.”

Kennedy wrote that an employee “has carried out his burden if he proves that he has in fact performed work for which he was improperly compensated and if he produces sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just and reasonable inference.”

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