In Re: Broiler Chicken Grower Antitrust Litigation

Berger Montague is co-lead counsel representing a class of contract chicken farmers (also called “growers”) in a pay suppression case alleging that the major chicken processing companies conspired to suppress the growers’ pay by illegally sharing confidential grower compensation data and illegally conspiring not to recruit each other’s growers.         

The case was filed in 2017. In 2021 through 2024, the plaintiffs settled with the defendants, the five largest chicken processing companies (Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyson, Sanderson Farms, Koch Foods, and Perdue) for $169 million, believed to be the largest recovery ever for growers against the chicken processing companies. The plaintiffs achieved certification of a nationwide plaintiff class in 2024 and were preparing for trial when the plaintiffs settled with the last defendant in July 2024. 

Read more about this case:

• Pilgrim’s Pride Agrees to Pay $100 Million in Chicken Farmers Suit (Law360)
• Pilgrim’s Pride Begins Settlement with Broiler Growers (Meat+Poultry)
• Pilgrim’s Pride in $100 Million Settlement Over Chicken Farmers’ Pay (Yahoo Finance)
• Pilgrim’s Pride loses bid to block US chicken growers’ class action (Reuters)

About Berger Montague

Berger Montague is one of the nation’s preeminent law firms focusing on complex civil litigation, class actions and mass torts in federal and state courts throughout the United States. The firm is active in the fields of antitrust, commercial litigation, consumer protection, defective products, environmental law, employment law, securities, and whistleblower cases, among other practice areas. For more than 50 years Berger Montague has played leading roles in precedent-setting cases and has recovered over $60 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented. Berger Montague is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Diego, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.