| Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued November 10, 2015 Decided March 22, 2016 | |
| Full case name | Tyson Foods, Inc., Petitioner v. Peg Bouaphakeo, et al., Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated |
| Docket no. | 14-1146 |
| Citations | 577 U.S. 442 (more) 136 S. Ct. 1036; 194 L. Ed. 2d 124; 2016 U.S. LEXIS 2134 |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Bouaphakeo v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 765 F.3d 791 (8th Cir. 2014); cert. granted, 135 S. Ct. 2806 (2015). |
| Holding | |
| The district court did not err in certifying and maintaining a class of employees who allege that the employer’s failure to pay them for donning and doffing protective gear violate the Fair Labor Standards Act, notwithstanding the employees’ reliance on “representative evidence” to determine the number of additional hours that each employee worked, when the employer had failed to keep adequate records. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Kennedy, joined by Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan |
| Concurrence | Roberts, joined by Alito (Part II) |
| Dissent | Thomas, joined by Alito |
Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 577 U.S. 442 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court affirmed the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which held that representative evidence could be used to support the claims of the class.[1] The case arose as a class action lawsuit against Tyson Foods. The Supreme Court affirmed the Eighth Circuit's judgment that the class satisfied the predominance requirement of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure's Rule 23 and that the use of representative evidence was allowable in this case. It has been cited by lower courts and has spawned significant academic discussion.