THREAD:
1) In a previous thread, I mentioned that, in my career, I had worked on 2 modern-day slavery cases, 1 of which was a class action. That case was the second of 2 class actions brought by my old firm’s client, a trade association for owner-operator truck drivers, ...

2) against a company called Rocor, Inc., which used to be based in Oklahoma City. I say “used to be based” because it no longer exists. Rocor made more money off of scamming its fleet of drivers than it did from moving freight.

3) As an attorney for the trade association, I sought authority to file the second case from its Board of Directors. After I presented them with the facts regarding what we’d found Rocor to be doing, my instructions were to “leave a smoldering crater in the ground where ...

4) the company used to be.” The first case against Rocor involved Rocor’s workers compensation (WC) scam. Rocor was authorized by the State of Oklahoma to self-insure WC claims for its own employees, but what Rocor did was to charge the drivers ...

5) (but not its office or warehouse workers) for WC coverage. We were able to document that Rocor had had several thousand drivers over the previous 10 yrs (the statute of limitations period), each of whom it had charged hundreds of dollars per year for WC coverage.

6) There was a question under Oklahoma law about whether owner-operator truck drivers could be considered “employees”, or were “independent contractors.” In our complaint, we pointed out that if the drivers were employees, it was a Schedule G felony...

7) under Oklahoma law to charge them for WC coverage, but if they were independent contractors, then the company had no authority to even cover them, much less charge them. Either way, each driver was owed a full refund.

8) After the first case was filed, it was brought to our attention by several current & former Rocor drivers (& others) that the WC scam was the merest fraction of what Rocor was doing.

9) The most frequent concerns were raised in the context of Rocor’s “Roc-Lease” program, which was essentially a “rent-to-own a truck” program. Rocor preyed on drivers with credit problems and/or insufficient funds to make a down payment sufficient to buy their own truck.

10) The “Roc-Lease” program was billed as a way for these drivers to become their own boss. They would rent a truck from Rocor’s fleet, and after the lease period, make a balloon payment. They would drive for Rocor, and the rent payments would be deducted from their earnings.

11) The company promised to pay the drivers’ way down to Oklahoma City and their expenses during the orientation for the program. At the end of the orientation, if it felt like a good fit, they could decide how long of a lease period they wanted ...

12) (1-3 years; longer lease = smaller monthly payment), sign the papers, and go immediately out on their first “run” for Rocor to start making money. The orientation lasted several weeks, during which the drivers were put up at a motel and their meals were covered, ...

13) but they received no other pay, so they had no way to send money home to their families. Rocor paid their way to Oklahoma City, but if they wanted to leave, they were on their own to get home.

14) At the end of orientation, late in the day on a Friday, the drivers were given their paperwork, told to look it over, sign it, and be back in the morning, ready to go. There were two sets of papers. One was the “Roc-Lease” truck rental agreement.

15) The other was a federally-regulated contract in which the driver agreed to lease the truck and his driving services to Rocor in exchange for compensation and the ability to use Rocor’s federally-granted authority as a motor carrier to move freight in interstate commerce.

16) Under the terms of the Roc-Lease agreement, if the driver stopped driving for Rocor for any reason during the lease period, the driver forfeited all rights to the truck, but remained liable for all remaining lease payments, and that debt was accelerated and due immediately.

17) To enforce such debts, Rocor filed liens on drivers’ homes, property, other vehicles, etc. The Roc-Lease drivers couldn’t quit. If they did, they lost not just the truck, but everything, through legal process, which made the forced employment peonage, ...

18) a type of slavery prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment. But Rocor made it impossible for them to want to continue to work for the company. Why? Because Rocor knew something the drivers didn’t: Rocor couldn’t sell them the trucks at the end of the lease period.

19) Rocor didn’t own them. Rocor was leasing the trucks from a dealership in Tulsa, so the company couldn’t sell the trucks. Thus, the company couldn’t allow the drivers to get to the point where they could make a balloon payment to buy the vehicles.

20) So, Rocor engaged in a number of other illegal schemes to deflate driver earnings, including simply skimming from the drivers’ compensation, in an attempt to get the drivers to quit, so it could repossess the trucks from the drivers.

21) Rocor had several different drivers on the hook for the same truck at the same time. If Driver 1 quit, they’d repossess the truck and assign it to Driver 2, while still collecting from Driver 1, and so on.

22) Over the years since, some have asked me how the way the debt was structured differed from a mortgage on a home loan. One typically doesn’t work at the bank where one gets their mortgage.

23) But let’s say someone, Mr. A, did – Mr. A is a teller at Bank B. Bank B has a good deal on mortgage interest rates, so Mr. A buys a house, with a 30-year mortgage from Bank B, and then 3 years later, Mr. A is offered a job as head teller for Bank C, ...

24) so he quits working for Bank B and goes to work at Bank C. He misses no payments. Does Bank B foreclose on the home, simply because Mr. A no longer works for Bank B? Of course not. And even when a bank does foreclose, does the former homeowner still owe all the remaining...

25) mortgage payments, accelerated to be due immediately? No. The home is sold, and there might be some remaining debt, called a deficiency, but those are usually worked out, or discharged in bankruptcy.

26) After we filed the second case, but before we could certify the class, Rocor declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. The bankruptcy trustee settled with the named plaintiffs. Even they got less than they had lost; the unnamed class members received nothing.

27) But I had hundreds of calls and letters from drivers who had been harmed by the company, thanking me for making sure that the company couldn’t hurt anyone else.

28) This is why I believe so strongly in class action litigation’s power to do good things, and why I want intelligent reform of the class action rules, to make the cases easier – not harder – to bring and navigate for plaintiffs; with reasonable process for defendants, ...

29) but without the endless costly motions to be briefed and argued at the pre-trial stage.

30) I'm running for Congress in 2022 because there are a lot of common sense solutions to issues that currently many don't even recognize to be problems. Class action litigation practice is one such area.

31) Please help me flip WI-06 blue. If you can afford it, please donate. Thanks! https://secure.actblue.com/donate/washburnforwis6th