Reefer Produce Claim

Hi I am new here looking for some advise.
We have a claim against our company they are wanting us to go through our insurance we refuse to do so we are a small company only 1 year in business but with many year in the industry. The claim facts are as follow
Claim is from the 3 letter broker starts with T ends with L I’ve read here there are known for this
Claim is for about 3/4 of the load of lettuce rejected for having some “chill damage” this is in the bol so they reloaded the bad produce back into our trailer and we took it to a near by produce place
Brokers Rate Confirmation instructed to follow bol for reefer temperature
Bol temperature instructed 33-34 driver Set reefer at 33
Pulp temperature upon receiving and documented was 34 33 32 front middle and rear of load. I sent over a reefer report
The argument for the claim from the broker was that the claim is valid because reefer report shows Return air supply ran 27-29. They then sent over USDA reports and salvage reports along with a temperature recorder report. Temperature recorder shows for a few minutes at a time temps as los as 30.9
This is my defense and why I think the claim is not valid
1. We followed instructions per bol set reefer at 33.
2. Reefer report shows reefer set at 33
Return air temperature never goes below 32-33
Supply air temperature 27-29 Broker also made an argument that our trailer caused the damage due to this we pointed out it was normal.
Average temperature the whole trip 33-34
The broker does not know how to read a reefer report and his allegations that the return air temperature was 27-29 are false he is mistaking RAT temperature for SAT I pointed this out and he had not reply to this. I told him it was normal for supply air temperature to be lower than return air temperature this is how reefers work to my understanding. He said this is was caused the produce to have chill damage.
3. As I mention pulp temps at unload documented on rejected form 34 33 32
4. USDA report gave the damaged produce a usno1 grade meaning the produce was not damaged enough to be thrown away. USDA report pointed out very minimal damage on the produce including mechanical damage, discoloring followed by bruising, decay. The USDA does not mention freeze damage or chill damage. I have looked up this terms in the USDA websites and found definitions to these terms non are related to chill damage or freeze damage. Per USDA website they are required to write it in the report if their is any freeze damage and it would not qualify for a usno1 score grade.
5. Temperature recorder can be tampered and five false records depending on where it is placed it can be place near the air vent and read much lower temperatures
6. On salvage report no produce was thrown away instead it was all bought for about $1900 dollars claim is for over $10,000 so they sold the stuff cheap. According to broker they only gave a salvage report from the broker not from the place where we dropped off the load.
7. We have ran this same load with the same shipper and same customer and same produce about 4 other times with no claims and we have bols from every trip to proof this the only difference is that it was another broker and the other broker asked and noted on the rate confirmation that the reefer be set at 35 and we did.
They are holding funds from my previous loads with them including fund from this load totaling +5000
Any advice on what we should do? I do not believe we did anything wrong to cause this load to go bad nor are we sure that in fact the reefer caused chill damage since it was not noted on the USDA report. Since it’s our second year in business it’s almost time to renew insurance and everything we do not want to file an insurance claim because our insurance is high already and we fear a claim will make it worse.

 

FDA report was done at the 2nd place and yes correct no report on FDA of damage due to reefer temperature FDA report was a NO 1 that’s the highest grade

what is B&B?
I told they they would need to take me to court before we have them a penny because they don’t have any proof of wrong doing on our part. I think they dropped the ball on the Reefer temp instructions and they are trying to blame the smaller guy.