Rate confirm

There is a lot of legal questions and intricacies in the business we are in. Ranging from understanding paragraphs of the broker-carrier agreements to what to do in case of a rejected load and no payment. There was a lawyer on Kevin Rutherford "Let's Truck" podcasts a few years back that regularly contributed...not sure if he is still there now, but I well remember certain things he was saying about the form and fashion in which the BOLs needed to be signed, the need for the name of your company on the BOL, double - brokering etc.

I would not mind to attend a full day seminar about this stuff.
There are still unanswered things such us what happens if a bird "knocks off" your trailer plastic seal or a shipper refuses your presence on the dock to secure the load and later all the freight is found scattered all over the floor. Also, interesting aspect of amending contracts in your favor: stamping your own detention terms on the Rate Confirmations, or modifying or adding annotations to broker-carrier agreements to your own liking. Are these need to be officially acknowledged and signed/initialed by the broker or you think you can just stamp it or scribble something on the margins and remain hopeful that it will have any legal bearing at all?
On the other hand, I have to look really stupid or at best paranoic when demanding a receiver to sign with a full name, acknowledge the seal arriving intact, even though they flat out refuse to come out and see it, or demanding that they would seal it when they are handing it to you - if they don't, I am video recording myself sealing it and then with the surroundings of the warehouse to show where I am at.

 

Yeah and I always thought when they signed "seal intact" you were good to go. But no.. They can come back and say that could mean ANY seal was intact and not the specific seal # issued by the shipper. So you have to get it signed "seal # 1234 intact" to really cover yourself. But imagine the stupid looks and resistance you would get to that simple request? The deck is always stacked against drivers.

 

To be fair, it never created a problem for me as an independent yet but it is never a problem until it is and for one truck authority it takes one bigger claim to mean the end of business.
On the other end, the shippers scan your ID, have you signed a variety of paperwork that you barely have a chance to look at and tell you that can't sign it as SL&C.
I am curious how those little things are resolved when it comes to a legal dispute.
When I was a driver on a dedicated run, there was once a situation when one pallet of Dunkin Donuts Bavarian cream pales were missing and neither the receiver nor shipper would acknowledge any miscount so I guess that I must have been the suspect of the theft. The trailer arrived with the seal but it was meaningless to them. Finally, the shipper decided to take it as their fault. They must have come to their senses, after I offered to pay like $500 for it. I was on that run for about a year already and I hated for my company to lose it. I was supposed to be on the dock and count it and I did not, so it was technically on me. But what the hell would I do with 20 something buckets of that pudding or who would I sell it to?
Of course, after that I was like a customs officer and counted every damn single pallet and each pallet was itemized before it entered the trailer. I became a pain in the arse for them. Doing my job, I kept saying.