On September 29, CCL filed an amicus brief for the American Association for Justice, once again asking the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss the petition in a case involving the Article III standing requirements in federal class actions. Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, No. 14-1146.

Plaintiffs in this case are hourly workers at a Tyson pork processing facility in Iowa. Employees were paid from the time the first piece of work arrived at their workstation until the last piece was finished. They were also paid four additional minutes to compensate for time donning and doffing required protective or sanitary equipment or clothing. Plaintiffs brought a class action alleging that donning/doffing activities constituted compensable work under the Fair Labor Standards Act for which they were not fully compensated. Plaintiffs’ expert testified, based on observations of a sample of workers, that workers in two areas of the plant spent an average of 21 minutes and 18 minutes performing these activities. Another expert calculated the amount of overtime pay owed to the class if Tyson had properly credited the workers with donning/doffing time. The expert noted that 212 members of the class would not have been eligible for additional overtime, even if properly credited with donning/doffing time. The jury returned an aggregate verdict in favor of the class. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review two questions, including whether a class action may be certified “when the class contains hundreds of members who were not injured.”

In an amicus brief prepared by CCL Senior Counsel Jeffrey R. White, AAJ submitted that this question is not properly presented in this case. The complaint alleged that all members of the class were undercompensated due to the pay system used by Tyson. The fact that the class subsequently limited the relief sought does not retroactively deprive the 212 ineligible workers of Article III standing. Moreover, the record reflects that plaintiffs’ expert removed those 212 workers from her calculations of the class damages; they did not contribute to the amount claimed by the class. Finally, Tyson lacks standing to challenge the allocation of an aggregate award among class members that will not affect the amount of Tyson’s liability. If the Court reaches the merits, AAJ argued, it should affirm the general rule followed by federal courts that allegations of concrete injury by the named plaintiff in a class action is sufficient to establish standing under Article III.