hello everyone,
ive never made a post before but Iam in a desperate situation at this point and trying to understand what i could or should do. i got 2 incidents almost similar issue. hear me out
I work for a freight truck company we pull containers from port and deliver to customers.
4/30/2022 we pulled a load out and delivered to a customer. The driver left and about an hour later the customer calls us and tells us the container fell over. The container fell over and also hit a parked vehicle on the side of the warehouse. Cops were called , a tow company was called out to clear everything up. Bill came out to be $52K. Police report says that the ground where the container was parked collapsed. Photos shows the landing gear caused holes on the customers loading space. None of that was there when the driver left.
Fast forward 2 months our customer whole time try to ignore bill for the tow, our chassis is in the tow yard with the damaged container and the load held by the tow company. Our insurance Nationwide cut us a check for trailer interchange for the full amount. Customer now is starting to give a shit because CMA the steam ship line is going after them for the 2 month per-diem they owe. Our insurance adjuster try to reach them and they never responded the whole time.
So the customer starts finally asking for contact to our insurance. I give them the adjusters contact info. Two more weeks goes by the customer gets a lawyer to deal with the situation with our insurance.
The tow company calls us telling us that OUR insurance nationwide paid out to them for the storage fees of the chassis, container and the customers cargo for the 2 plus month it was in their tow yard through our motor carrier coverage. And that the tow and recovery is on us and not the customer or the customers insurance (which they never gave up), because we are under insured… which makes no sense because if we were we would be allowed into the port terminals.
So basically right now we need to pay for the tow and recovery 52k plus the repairs on the chassis out of our own pocket.
Does this seem right ? When their foundation gave out due the the heavy cargo load in the container? Our driver was already gone? Please if anyone can help let me know or throw some knowledge at me.
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Second incident is similar we pulled a container to a storage facility . Left it there for the customers, hour later customer calls us to go move the container. Find that they unloaded half the container and the landing gear put 2 holes into the ground. Now the customer is telling the storage place that WE will take responsibility for the damage to the ground.
Same questions. Who is responsible in this situation? Customer / Broker wont pay for our service right now because we wont take responsibility or give up insurance. Please help Iam losing sleep over all this.
