Is an owner operator responsible to pay for damages to company trailer?

Why would she spend money on a lawyer when the O/O has been duped into paying for the damages and then will have his ### kicked to the curb!

 

In the back of my mind though I wonder about whether or not I will have someone coming after me in the future for property damage or worse.

I wouldn't put that too far back in the mind just yet. If he "bent" an axle then he hit something hard and heavy. May only be a rock at the entrance...or a concrete pole.... or a fuel pump or a car. I can see someone coming out of the woodwork with a claim.

Cover your arse and file a claim of information ( you're advising your carrier and opening a file) immediately but not filing a claim....yet.

Do what you can to get everything from the o/o like what happened. Note his route and add his logs to your file. Note the customers seen and support his logs with time stamps from receivers. Add support with fuel receipts and tolls if any.

Point is documentation. Could take six or more months for someone ( if anyone ) to find you and report any damage....and it might all be for nothing but...it's better to have it and not need it then not have it and need it.

JMO and good luck

 

I see your point...Silly me for thinking she'd do what she said:
"""I am going to contact an attorney"""

She probably needs to contact one so she knows how to word the new OO agreements too...

 

CAT scale receipts are time-stamped too, though not many drivers actually know it because they're sneaky about it. If you look at the center left side of the yellow receipt, & compare both copies they give you, there's a 4 digit number (not your re-weigh number) that's on one copy, but it's in a blackout area on the other copy. It's just a number, there's no AM or PM or a colon. Example, 1642 is 16:42 or 4:42 PM local time.

 

Ran into that years ago.

But, you are most likely correct.

 

I've been following along this thread and not too surprised at the responses. I can totally empathize with your giving the benefit of the doubt and how substantial a $4,000 repair is to a small operation.

I'm a little unclear about the hiding of DOT inspections. Those have to be signed by a carrier representative and returned to the issuing agency in 15 days, even if there's no OOS or fines. I know this first hand having returned a few. Did those agencies not contact you? Or did your operator falsely sign and return them? I'm not sure of the potential blow-back from that, although it's pretty clear you're the "victim" if he signed them on your behalf.

I'd suppose that if there had been property damage from whatever got hit, you'd have heard about it by now. Always a possibility you could get a call. I would be more worried about what the next incident will be, on top of the repair that isn't paid off yet. Or even better, the dude gets "sick" and quits driving or just disappears after some home time. Or has an on the job "injury."

I've seen what I thought were really good people pull some weird stuff when they're under pressure of possible job loss and just mentally tip over or check out. I've been the good guy and bent over backward to try to guide a recovery and it almost never worked out.

Maybe I'm crazy but your approach makes me think of pushing a bad poker hand. I think this guy could end up costing you a lot more than that axle before it's all over with. I'd release him right away, and then negotiate with the shop on used parts or whatever else I could figure out to reduce the cost to get it ready for the new operator to DH over and hook it up.

I wish you the best and hope this works out favorably for you.

 

Maybe I have missed it but I have not seen you say that you have talked to an attorney. You have told us that he is under no legal obligation to pay for this. Now you meet with him, fire him and tell him you are keeping all the money and will call it even.
Now ask yourself what you think the odds are that he is not going to sue you. And what it will cost to defend this.
My company was sued when we fired a salesman for falsifying his expenses reports. My HR person withheld $373 from his final check for what he "stole" from me. His brother-in-law filed a lawsuit that cost me over $8000 in attorney's fees to have them drop it. But I had to respond