The legal battle that has lasted over a decade is finally over. Judge Ted Stewart of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah signed his name for (hopefully) the last time to a final judgment in favor of the truckers who brought the suit. All in, they were awarded more than $1.3 Million. The judgment is final, but C.R. England still has 30 days to appeal the ruling. Until those 30 days are past, no money will be dispersed.
The class action lawsuit was filed by OOIDA on behalf of the truckers back in 2002, but didn’t go to trial until 2006. Once the judge ruled in favor of the drivers, a flurry of accounting, appeals, and blatant stall tactics drew out the final ruling until just now. Considering how little the ruling awarded, CRE probably spent more on their legal defense and accounting services than they would have just paying the $1.3 Million up front. Because of their indifference over wasting time and money, it is still up in the air whether or not CRE will decide to challenge the final ruling.
Similar to how legendary mobster Al Capone was finally jailed on charges of tax evasion, the suit brought against CRE was an attempt to deal with a much larger problem by using a relatively small infraction. Knowing that they wouldn’t be able to do any damage to CRE by just saying that their business practices were manipulative, wrong, and tantamount to theft, they instead brought a case saying that CRE had violated federal Truth-in-Leasing regulations by misusing drivers’ escrow funds.
“There were several good precedents that came out of this case that will serve us well going into the future, “said OOIDA President Jim Johnston, “and obviously we are pleased that we won the suit. But the object of most of our class action cases is to correct practices, make it better for drivers. In this case, we don’t see that C.R. England has changed many of their practices, and we feel there are still many drivers who are taken advantage of under the arrangement with CRE.”
Johnston’s objections reinforce the true purpose of the suit, not to get CRE to pay a token fine and go back to the way things were, but to force them and other mega-carriers to do business in a more honest way. CRE has apparently cleaned up their act in terms of properly managing money in escrow, but the lease programs that they and other mega-carriers offer are still just as deceptive and wrong. Whether or not that will change anytime soon is anyone’s guess.
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Source: landline
And yet, somehow, they and a bunch of other of these companies I’m sure we could name, manage to keep suckering wannabe owner-operators into these bogus lease-purchase programs. You’d think anybody contemplating getting involved in one of these scams …err …schemes would go online and do a little research, wouldn’t you? Apparently sufficient numbers do not that they still are getting away with it. There is, after all, this thing called Google. Go to google.com. Enter the name of the company who’s “lease-purchase” program you’re contemplating being suckered in to. Follow the name of the company with these words, “lease purchase reviews,” click the “Search” button. Start reading. Remember, if something stinks, something is probably rotten.
Shine a new truck in front of these young rookies and that is all it takes.A dream turns into a nightmare.
CRE is the worst! They should be put out of business! All you students thinking of going to CRE, talk to one of their drivers at a truck stop. They’ll tell you honestly what a scam their “lease purchase” is. Stay Away!
I thought about leasing a truck through the company that I first started driving for 14 years ago. I am glad that I never did, to me it would probably feel like an anchor around my neck.
Is this a joke or what?!!!! An article about the CROOKS with an ad for more suckers right beside It!!!
The ads are automatically generated by Google AdSense, it’s not something we control on our end. CR England probably has their advertising set to appear when their name is mentioned, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind.
Old CRE the training was awesome ……just the training …..once I was finished training and it came too pick company or lease team or.solo……..wtf I had(had) too speak with some one about leasing a truck first….its all there they show you the box of condoms their going too use on you. It starts off with you’ll get 3000 miles a week and after they take out there cut ….they tell you you’ll get about 600 a week …….hahahahahahaha so me, i being grab the papers and did the math in front of them……something about super pay .25¢ a mile (no jokes) so I did .25×3000=750 so I ask why would I want too make 600 a week leasing a truck when I could f#%k yours up for 750 a week……that said and done my six months was up I found an 07 9400i for $44000 put 6000 down and now I’m OO for con-way…….
Just do the math and I never seen over 2300 miles a week as a solo driver
Is it too late to get on this law suit against cre . does any one know how to contact ooida .i have been with this company cr england for just about a year.
Wish I would have known about it. I worked for them in 2012 as an owner operator