[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] heard oral arguments [day call, PDF] Tuesday in two cases. In Tyson v. Bouaphakeo [transcript, PDF] the court heard arguments on whether [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] differences among plaintiff members can be ignored for the purposes of a class action lawsuit when damages will be calculated that presume all class members are identical. The second question posed to the court was whether the class action may be certified and maintained when some members of the class were not injured but are still seeking damages. The case involves a plaintiff class who are all former employees of Tyson Foods, Inc. [corporate website] at the company’s meat facility in Iowa. The employees are claiming that the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 [text] and the Iowa Wage Payment Collection Law [text] by not paying appropriate compensation for the time spent putting on and taking off protective clothing at the beginning and end of the work day and lunch break. Both lower courts affirmed certification of the plaintiffs’ case.

The court also heard arguments in Luis v. US [transcript, PDF] on whether [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] the pretrial restraint of a defendant’s assets that are not directly related to the crime at hand and would affect defendant’s ability to have representation at trial violate the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. The case involves a woman, Sila Luis, who was allegedly part of a Medicaid fraud scheme that involved giving kickbacks to people who enrolled in her home healthcare companies. Federal law provides that the government may restrain assets of a defendant when they are accused of particular types of fraud. Luis objected and contends that she needs the assets in order to pay for her attorneys. The district court granted the motion, and the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] affirmed.