Employees brought suit in federal district court against Tyson Foods for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Iowa Wage Payment Collection Law.

[3] The district court held that there were sufficiently-common questions to certify the class, such as whether the donning and doffing qualified as work under the FLSA.

[4] The employees, therefore, relied on their statements, videos of people putting on and taking off protective gear, and a research study.

[6] However, Tyson Foods did not question the representative evidence used, such as by moving for a Daubert hearing, and instead emphasized that there was too much individual variance for the issues to be resolved in a class.

[6] The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit disagreed, affirmed the judgment,[7][6] and held that the use of representative evidence was appropriate in this case.

[17] Part I suggested that the Court was not relaxing rules for representative evidence in this case but had found that the study met the required standard of proof.

[18] Part II expressed concern that there is no clear way to determine how much time the jury thought should be compensated for donning and doffing since it awarded a sum lower than the study suggested to be appropriate.

[21] The dissent believed the district court was wrong in finding that the class satisfied Rule 23's predominance requirement because it did not recognize that whether each employee worked overtime was a critical individual issue.

[22] The dissent also suggested that the majority opinion improperly construed the predominance inquiry, relaxed the rule for representative evidence, and failed to adhere to prior precedent.

Experts continue to discuss Tyson’s legacy, particular how the case will impact the predominance inquiry and whether the use of representative evidence will expand.