C.R. England has agreed to pay $37.8 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought against it. The suit was filed over its lease-to-own program, which critics described as “predatory” and even “fraudulent.”
The settlement agreement comes just a few weeks shy of the eight-year anniversary of the original lawsuit’s filing. At the start in 2011 there were only two plaintiffs: Kenneth McKay and Charles Roberts. Both had been independent contractors for C.R. England who entered into a vehicle lease agreement with Opportunity Leasing, Inc – also known as Horizon Truck Sales and Leasing – the leasing arm and subsidiary of C.R. England.
Attorneys for McKay and Roberts argued that C.R. England misled potential new hires in order to get them to commit to a lease-purchase program. Once truckers were locked in, many found that it wasn’t possible to make enough money to support themselves. After making payments for weeks, months, or sometimes even years, they walked away from the job, their truck reclaimed by C.R. England. The carrier was then free to turn around and lease it again to the next driver.
Many of the lease-purchase truckers came from C.R. England’s “free” CDL training school. In actuality, the program did cost thousands of dollars, but there was no upfront payment required, and after driving for the carrier for a set amount of time the tuition was forgiven. C.R. England even guaranteed employment after completion of their program.
But according to the class members, company driver jobs were scarce and new graduates were steered toward the lease-purchase program with false promises.
While the lawsuit started with just two drivers, according to the class action settlement notice, the class now involves 17,519 drivers. Class members include anyone who entered into vehicle lease and independent contractor agreements with C.R. England and Horizon between 2007 and 2017.
Now that the settlement has been agreed upon by both parties, it will need to be approved by a judge at a hearing which is set for July 9th, 2019.
If approved, C.R. England will pay $37.8 million. Members of the class who do not opt out of payment will receive somewhere between $1,000 and $1,500 each. Nearly $16.3 million of the total settlement will go to attorneys’ costs and fees.
In addition, C.R. England has agreed to stop trying to collect on all unpaid debts from students who found themselves having to pay back the “advanced funds” payment which covered the cost of their “free” CDL training. The current amount of debt that is still unpaid by those students is approximately $13 million.
There’s also $48 million worth of “Advanced Funds Debts” which C.R. England still hasn’t collected from class members which will be forgiven entirely. Those debts include things the company billed their independent contractors for like truck maintenance, permits, licensing fees, and lease payments. Some class members claimed the fees were so egregious that they ended up owing money on their paychecks and had no choice but to walk away.
According to one of the co-lead attorneys for the class, C.R. England will also have to inform credit reporting agencies that those debts have been cancelled and provide “an opportunity for credit and DAC reporting repair.” Though since the vast majority of that debt is at least two years old with some of it up to twelve years old, it is not clear how much damage has already been done.
Finally, a total of $68,500 will be paid to Kenneth McKay and the estate of Charles Roberts as an incentive award for bringing the case back in 2011. Roberts passed away before the settlement was reached.
“We are proud of the opportunity we offered to enterprising people to start and grow their own businesses, much like our founder, C.R. England, did with just one truck,” a spokesperson for C.R. England said. “However, we understand that some were not happy with their experience and we hope that this settlement resolves any lingering concerns.”
C.R. England has not admitted any wrongdoing as part of the settlement agreement.
Source: overdrive, crenglandclassaction, topclassactions, freightwaves, americanshipper, globenewswire, truckersreport, truckersreport
Karl says
Wow!!! So the two original fellows will get 68k. Everyone else will get between 1k and 1500. Attorneys will get nearly 16.3 Million in costs and fees.
I agree completely about these lease deals but I cant help but laugh about the word “Predatory” used in title when the story confirms there is 2 predators in this deal. CR England and the law firm
Duh says
Agreed that Lawyers fees are a bit ridiculous, but you had to get a big enough Law Firm to take on CR England.
attornet says
Any law firm that takes a case like that without upfront fees will not do so for less than 40% of any judgement earned at the end of whatever process takes place.
You dont want to pay them that much? You are free to pork over 300+ and hour per attorney (about 5-6 will work such a case) + support staff + misc fees. This way the case might only end up costing you 2mil vs 16, but i dont see volunteers throwing money at it?
Com.bil says
One third of the judgment is a fair payment for legal representation, and any fees are recovered from the loser,! These ambulance chaser are getting greedier by the year ! I think what is going to be funny is when the get their new tool through the system there is going to be bunch of those people driving Uber for their income
Ed says
Well first if all cr England is a real big joke and its not legal
For a attorneys office to charge a percentage over 30 % on any case so if they are charging 40 percent then there stealing from there clients how sad
And sick that they are already screwed over by England and now the attorneys pretty messed up
Les says
That’s the American way, just like in all the medical class action suits. My mother endured 10 years of torture, multiple surgeries and finally murdered on the operating table in the last surgery. After 10 years of legal battles in that class action suit lawyers made out with millions while family members got nothing. Welcome to reality.
Jason Aho says
So, $1000-1500 is deemed enough restitution for essentially bankrupting hard working men and women who were tricked by these companies while lawyers laugh their way to the bank with $16 million. God I love America!! SMH. When will this madness end? Maybe some vigilante justice is in order for these companies that treat people this way.
Jimmy chesteen says
Vigilante justice is in order these days in many aspects, if only the law would get out of the way….crimes would reduce if they didnt have legal ground to hide on…
Les says
Wake up, it is your government laws that rape the people, if you want justice you will first have to remove the government.
Samuel Mitchell says
Yea they red flagged my DAC report, but it didn’t do any good, I still got jobs after I told them how C R England Screwed me in a lease option, an the DM Bob Hoffman was a complete A**Hole about the whole thing!
I’m glad someone finally had the brains to do this to them, I’m not smart enough to think of doing this to CRE, but thank you for standing up to them
Joel says
They owe me more then 1500,
Jim says
The whole “credit score” thing is one big scam.
One MORE scheme in the elimination of the middle class.
This was quite obvious when they started that.
Dean says
“For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure, or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”
Ephesians 5:5
Bob Hunnicutt says
Amen ! Thank GOD for His justice regarding those who do not have Jesus as their Savior
Gwin says
1 Thessalonians 5:18 “Give thanks in ALL circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
MrYowler says
The Englands are Mormon. They have their own bible and a guy with a hotline to God, to straighten out this sort of confusion.
After all… All you really have to do, to get into heaven, is accept Jesus into your heart and ask forgiveness for your sins. You don’t even need to hire a lawyer, for that… You can be as evil as you want for as long as you want, as long as you repent before you die. Those people that you screwed over? Well, they can just kiss… I mean… turn the other cheek…!
The dead ones, at least, aren’t mad at them, any more.
Com.bil says
Why did you guys not join the class action ?
Greg dowdy says
And I did sign a document to be part of that law suit
Patrick says
The next needs to be Bridger Transportation.
John says
I left CR England in 2011 for that very reason. My mentor tried to get me to stay on his truck, because I loved to drive. We turned and burned. He finely made money. When I got off his truck, they tried to tell me the only thing I was able to do at the time was to lease. Told them I wasn’t down with that, they told me they would send home for a few weeks and would call me when they had a company truck available. Went from bad to worse, went to swift and got screwed pretty much the same way. Oh well, live and learn.
Com.bil says
Should have stayed with him ! You young guys are going to learn to treat driving as a job instead of a paid vacation, and running team is the only way you can run hard enough to make a good living ! Give it some serious thought and run the numbers and you will see !
Jack Schitt says
In my humble opinion this is another dirty way the lie-driven company, C.R. England, snaked their way out of screwing their drivers over. They knew exactly what they were doing and I think accepting the settlement is foolish for the victims because while $37.8 million sounds like a lot with the number of victims each of them might only get $1000 of it for being bent over and raked for the cost of a truck which includes a bunch of more zeros, each driver.
C.R. England dirtied their way out of this cheaply and still cheated the drivers “they care about”, still profited hundreds of millions from what they took from the drivers.
Kenneth Olson says
Cr England was always a scumbag outfit, only fitting that the scumbag attorneys made out, only in America
John says
So the liyers got the best of the deal as usual. What a disgrace!
Michael Grossman says
Thats why i love being a swift driver we have lease purchase and some weeks after all is paid i make at least 140$ thats almost twice as much as i took home at McDonald’s i have a free roof over my head and im gona own this big rig one day only in america
Steel Horse and Wooden Mem says
Keep living the American dream…one day when you’re sitting in a repair shop, you’ll realize how screwed you got
WILL says
What about students who went to CR England and were fired as of no fault of their own? Didn’t get a chance to finish the time to work off the tuition. I was such a student. I was fired while in training, not even a week on the road. The CR England trailer caught on fire. I was blamed. No hearing nothing. Now my credit is jacked because CR England says I owe them for the advanced tuition. Whom/where do I turn to?
Bob Hunnicutt says
contact the lawyers
Cecil Mitchell says
Point me in the right direction
Steel Horse and Wooden Mem says
Hire a lawyer and use this suit to overturn your record
Com.bil says
Federal Trade Commission, (Fraud department), file a complaint ! Federal Department of Transportation, file a complaint! BBB of America, File a complaint. Be professional have you information in order and handy, Owner Operators and Drivers of America, file for asistance
John T Booker says
I don’t care who gets the money.
This should be just beginning of the story. Drivers are lied to by company’s and their sales departments everyday.
Next the DOT needs to be forced to punish companies NOT drivers for trucks in poor condition.
Chad Epps says
That’s why durning pre-tripping you truck you have the right to shut it down if it is not safe to drive until repairs are done!
DavidStelly says
Anyone surprised by their actions have not been Trucking very long. Rates went through the floor and they figured they could make more off of their employees by mandatory lease programs
Bob Hunnicutt says
The lawyers are also thieves .
Another CR England defrauded Owner op leaser says
As a member of the class action suit after CR England messed me up so bad that it put me and my son living on the streets for a while . yes i lost my apartment because of them . not to mention the harassment they did everything from sending me a bill for over 17,000.00 for so called repairs washing the truck and motor for example i still have the receipt where i had blue beacon at Tifton wash my truck 2 days before . I took care of my equipment always , as well as charging me for a wire tie . Yes I am glad to get anything from them and will photo graph it and mount it on the wall with my CR owner op t shirt . Thanks to the Attorneys and the folks who started this suit . They deserve what they get . They earned it .
Cecil Clyde Mitchell says
How do you get the information about the law suit and what you have to do.
Cecil Mitchell says
I drove for them in 2007 under that program how do I get part of this
Com.bil says
Sorry guys if the award has been approved if you read the article the only thing you are going to realize out of it is they must correct any claims they made against your credit for the truck lease and they have to drop any claims against you for the school !
Bob Bagwell says
I was part of that lease program from 2007-2012. I paid off 2 trucks. The first lease was 18 months, the second was a brand new 2009 Freightliner Cascadia. I paid $105,000 for that truck over 3 years, it was only worth $104,000. After all that they wanted $68,500 for me to purchase the truck. Excuse me? after 3 years I paid that truck off. When I refused to buy it they leased my truck to another driver. I became a company driver for an additional four years before leaving them over a dispute. My entire career with CR England was on two Walmart dedicated Fleets. Some weeks I went without pay because all the pay went to the program costs. Their lease program was a scam and Horizon Leasing and CR England knew it
Gwin says
Everybody denigrates lawyers until it comes time to need one. I am a law school dropout. Was a trucker before law school and am a trucker now. I dropped out of law after the first year because I could not reconcile my idealistic focus on justice with the realistic view of how law actually works (or doesn’t work, as the case may be). Still-I have great respect for some lawyers, namely the ones I went to law school with. The ones who pursued it for the same reasons I did: to fight corporate dominance in favor of the working gal. Sometimes the law wins. Sometimes it does not.
Steel Horse and Wooden Mem says
There are some who have heart
Com.bil says
And one of these days you are going to wake up and realize this country was founded on the concept of individual freedom and personal wealth ! Our social system has evolved around financial risk takers that were wiling to work hard take an idea and turn it into a product, then find a market or make one and turn that into PROFIT !
Adam Adair says
Leasing on to a carrier is a bad deal… risk reward is off setting and lease payments you could directly buy the truck if your credit is half way ok. Look at the weekly lease cost vs buying the truck from a dealer over four years.
Walter Sadler says
Drivers are not children,we possess intelligent, that means knowing good deal vs bad deal. In any business there is risk involved. Business success depends on what you are willing to invest of yourself. I have degree in Trans Mang and come from family of Lawyers I would never enter contract without discussing it with lawyer, OOIDA will assist, don’t blame Lawyers for you own fail faults. Let this be a lesson learned move on.
Deadwood says
In 2010 CR England tried to pressure me into leasing. I requested a copy of the contract so that I could have a lawyer friend review it. They declined, saying drivers were allowed to look at the contract but not make copies of it.
OOIDA exists to make a profit by having vendors pay them for the right to be under the OOIDA reputational umbrella and to get access to drivers to sell them things. Period. They can’t afford to be an persistent, active legal presence in the industry. They’ve got to pick their shots.
If you were persistent and lucky enough to get an OOIDA lawyer on the phone, they would be noncommittal and talk in generalities.
Drivers aren’t children but most aren’t financially sophisticated enough to handle a six figure transaction in an industry they unfamiliar with either.
Laying fault on the driver given the obviously disproportionate level of industry experience is disingenuous on your part.
Com.bil says
Problem I have with your comment is Lawyers are like truck driver you can not get a consensus from any of them, I think they disagree out of hand just to be rude !
Screwfist says
I guess with all that “intelligent” that you possess, you missed out on possessing basic grammar. Also I think I had some Trans Mang for lunch yesterday and it was at around 140 degrees, so I know how you feel there…
Jerome says
That’s how they get ya!! They make you pay for the truck then take it away right before the lease is up by firing you. Then start all over again with fresh new rookies who don’t understand how this trucking game works!!
Robert Bilyeu says
How foolish some people are to actually believe, although there are a few rare company’s that tell the truth, that the trucking company is going to help you realize your dream ,are out to help you. But, I see it everyday, driver’s who just love yo say they are owner operators. Yes they can drive, but they don’t know “come here from sickem” when it comes to business.
Ol Joe says
I’ve been trying for years to warn everyone I can with regards to a lease purchae program. Never ever ever get your truck the same place you get your loads I don’t care who it is. A truck will make more money being sold over and over again than it will rolling down the highway.
Luis says
1000 to 1500, what a joke
George says
Now if only these companies can finally be brought to justice for their highly blatant predatory practices of duping new hires into signing those debt contracts! Roehl, for example, requires new hires to sign a predatory debt contract in order to attend their new hire orientation. The trucking industry is the only industry that doesn’t treat company employees fairly under federal labor laws. I have NEVER experienced an employer charge thousands of dollars just to be hired and attend orientation. Only the trucking industry… a very broken and very unprofessional industry.
Virgil Larone Hiley says
The lawyers are laughing loudly to the bank.
Cyrus Curenton says
There is a company in Ashford, Alabama that should have been sued…while I was working there, they started pushing drivers toward their purchase program. At first, there were loads-a-plenty, but the last few months of the term the loads got hard to come by, and almost everybody lost their tractor if they didn’t have some savings….
robin says
Here’s my story was CR England – when I applied to them for work, they said that they are not hiring company drivers but only leased drivers. So I thought, okay, cool, “can you send me a copy of the contract review?” They responded, “no, you will have to drive up to the main facility to look at it.” Right there was the first red flag. So with a little bit of badgering, they finally conceded do at least send me a summary of the lease requirements even though it was not the contract itself.
So thanks to the Internet, I was actually able to find an old copy of the contract. Between the two of them, it was enough for me to actually sit down and do some math and when I read about the restrictions on the contract such as you’re not allowed to drive over so many miles per week which limits your income and the penalties for doing so. In addition, the other charges and fees that went along with it, it did not pencil out.
As time went on and I read articles such as this one, I’m very thankful for my decision not to move forward with them.
Later on I had the opportunity to talk with drivers from other companies and learned that one of the dirty tricks that companies like to do, especially with new drivers is they entice you with ownership of your own truck with their lease programs and then when you get close to the end of the lease, they either starve you out so you can’t make the payments or something else happens where you have to return the truck and the company turns around and starts a new lease contract with another driver and does the exact same thing.
Deadwood says
The relevant math:
$16.3 million divided by $37.8 million = 43.12%.
43% of the settlement goes to lawyers. Ridiculous. Class action legal cost reimbursements should be capped at 33%. That’s plenty.
Jeffery Bryan says
What about the $8k they took out my maintenance account? What about the $10k I had to pay off the irs? What about the suicide victims that sold everything they had for this scam? I was a phase 1 trainer for 5 years. Barely made ends meet if it wasn’t for my tax reserve that I ended up owing more. I will take my $1500 and buy what?
Willie Roberts El says
When Are The Checks Being Mail Out?
Charles L. Weinert says
my check for 1,000.00 was stolen. someone cashed my check by forging my signature then putting it in care of some girls name and depositing it into her account. All i got out of this was me getting a W2 for the money that i had to claim as it was cashed. I have contacted the authorities and pressing charges however i do need a contact name and number from the ones in charge of the payout for the police to contact.