your contract wasn't with the shipper, it was with ATS, but you can bet the shipper discussed the fact they paid for exclusive use and wanted a rate adjustment. exclusive use means just that , and it wasn't exclusive use, it matters not whether it makes sense or not, you agrred to it and violated the agreement. I bet they can show their rate for non exclusive use, frankly you aint got a leg to stand on.
look, the question isn't whether it was exclusive use or not, the question is when someone violates a contract does that allow the other party to do whatever they want.
The answer is no. If you contract someone to perform a service for you and you feel they are not abiding by the contract terms you can
A. fire them at the time you identify the problem
B. allow them to complete the job and pay them as agreed
C. renegotiate a new agreement
you answered your own question, if you read the entire contract , it will almost assuredly state what the terms are. a good rule of thumb is when YOU violate the contract, you are somewhat at the mercy of the other party. good thing you worked up a new one, u would have lost in court. by the way what was the new deal?
Now, let's try to create a comparable situation where a shipper/broker violates a rate agreement. Let's say you show up to haul a load and you have a rate agreement that it is 16' long and 10k. When you get there it is 40' long and 30k. Do you go ahead and haul the load and then send them a bill for double the rate ? Or do you demand they give you a rate agreement for double after hauling the load ?
I don't think so, I think you can either
A. refuse to haul the load before loading and demand a TONU.
B. Haul the load for the agreed rate
C. renegotiate a new agreement (obviously, you have a much stronger "leg to stand on" if you renegotiate before loading)
and it was the same logic that applied to my situation, yes I violated the contract and they could have fired me and sued for damages. But they didn't, they loaded my truck. I communicated with the shipper and broker and they both implied that the situation was resolved.
It's the same when you show up, if you allow them to load your truck it indicates you are in agreement. When this shipper loaded my truck it also indicated he was in agreement. You can't just put your load on a truck and then say the truck wasn't adequate and demand money.
I dunno, I'm no lawyer, but I think since they were aware of the problem and chose to load the truck anyways they would need to prove some type of damage against them to win a court case.
We agreed that I gave them good service on the load, no different than if the truck was empty. We agreed that I should have read the rate agreement more carefully and removed the "exclusive use" clause beforehand or let them find another truck. We agreed that the time for them to set a new rate for the shipment was when my mistake was realized, not after delivering it.
I don't ever attempt to "stick it to" people, once I'm hired I just want to be paid appropriately for services and bend over backwards to find reasonable solutions to problems, not create them. Why, I've gone as far as being delayed 3 days on loads not listed correctly just for the additional cost of permits before.
Being the broker knew about the other item already loaded and decided to go ahead and have shipper load the oversize, they give up the exclusive use, now if you had loaded the oversize first then seeing available space, loaded a second partial and the receiver notified broker or shipper that you violated the terms, then the broker has a leg to stand on. But as they knew before being load that was the time for them to try and reduce the rate.