##### ### ######## are playing games with my money.

After the fact this driver realized the err in accepting two loads which was not transported legally in a defective CMV and violating FMCSA hours ofservice part 395 of the D.O.T. handbook.

Cut your losses and move on, these guys will never pay you without incriminating thyself in the presence of a EEOC labor commissions investigation.

 

Tell you what. This guy's got a point. Well, look, the EEOC handles dissemination claims but I get it, a government investigator like a labor commissioner will take forever to do anything about this. If the OP wasn't employed there very long, their claim doesn't look attractive to a lawyer and if we got down to brass tax a jury will probably say, look, it went bad from a 1 month employment relationship so what did you really lose? If the OP isn't out of work very long, there are minimal damages to pursue in court, thus making it impractical to take "real" legal action outside of sending a terrifying demand letter. You have obvious liability here but the minimal damages, and the fact that NJ is probably not employee-friendly... I think the OP is going to have a hard time finding justice on this. On the other hand, a small company could probably be easily persuaded by a demand letter more so than a larger carrier, since they have more to loose if they really do get sued. I think the OP is going to find work in another 4 weeks and their damages are going to be like small claims status , and nobody would file a case under those circumstances. I think I have an opinion about all of this but don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm a lawyer since I never made any representations like that.

 

all that said, I think we're on to something with the small claims thing. What does small claims look like in NJ? In California, you cannot have an attorney present in small claims court. What this comes down to, is that if you can show legal liability on the other party, then you can get a judgement in your favor without worrying about all that "is there enough damages to make this worth pursuing." No attorneys means no attorneys fees, fairly low risk in taking it to a judge or commissioner, so that's something they should look into. I'm sure small claims court would be enough to straighten these people out, and if they FTA you should get default judgement. I think that's probably worth looking into if you think they owe you less than $10k

 

A lawyer would cost as much as his claim...and small claims is about the only remedy if he has a written contract. Which I doubt. Then after it's all said, a state court judgement still doesn't guarantee compensation for wages lost. Being scumbag operaters, the company principles will lawyer up and send him a demand letter for damages due to late delivery fines by the customer and possible expenses for truck repairs. I have seen this before, the driver failed to get in writing a copy of the terms of employment. Officially, without proper documentation a legal daily log of everything that occurred during his probation period, IMO, leaves him helpless to petition a court to hear this case.

Case Dismissed!

 

I think that post was edited, because I can't even spell dissemination. Or maybe the auto-correct did it. In any case, I suggest you closely monitor my posts from now on to make sure I am in full compliance with the terms of use. Because if I could, I'd delete everything I've contributed to this website, but I know that my posts, as well as every other persons on this site, help drive traffic and therefore revenues to whoever owns it.

A lawyer would cost as much as his claim, if the lawyer was working on an hourly basis. Most employment cases worth their salt are taken on a contingency fee basis. But yeah, it would require some preparation to be successful in small claims court for sure. And if the OP went in there ranting and raving about Russians, Putin heads or whatever they said, I'm sure the case would get thrown out immediately. It requires like, total emotional detachment and transparency. Even then it's unpredictable. I guess that's why most cases settle. I think this guy should just send a letter threatening legal action himself and see where it goes.

 

MOLOKO, I firmly believe not all large or small trucking companies are full of crap, I worked for company that actually paid very good rates, on time and fixed any issues on the truck quick without some hassle from the dispatch. But then again an exception to the rule could be a gang of thugs running illegally out of New Jersey.