Tyson Foods Unit Beats Team Lead’s Leave Bias, Equal Pay Claims

An employee of a Tyson Foods Inc. subsidiary lacked evidence her firing was retribution for needing medical leave and that she was paid unequally because she’s a woman, an Arkansas federal judge ruled.

Tyson Shared Services Inc. asserted Ashley Weston was terminated for poor performance, including inadequate development of a written plan to train new hires for a chicken deboning plant. Weston didn’t show that explanation was pretextual, the US District Court for the Western District of Arkansas said Monday.

Weston argued Tyson’s justification was inadequate because she was meeting the project’s training needs, but providing written reports “is ...