By Colin Barrett
Q: WE OFFER A post audit of shippers’ paid freight bills.
My question has to do with a motor carrier with which we filed approximately $12,500 in claims for duplicate payments. The claims were filed three and four years ago and within the statutory three-year period.
The carrier dragged out all kinds of excuses not to pay, and then about two years ago, it was acquired by another company. The new carrier, a major one, is telling us now that the claims were not filed on time, and it has denied payment, and won’t answer our inquiries.
Do you have any thoughts on how we can resolve this problem? We are considering filing with the Surface Transportation Board and following up with a legal action.
We’ve had no help from the client because people there have changed.
A: I THINK YOU’RE GOING TO have to forget the claims. From your experience, however, learn how to handle future claims differently.
For openers, I have no idea what you mean when you write of “the statutory three-year period.” The time limit for motor carrier overcharge claims is 18 months, per 49 U.S.C. Section 14705(b), and has been for nearly t wo decades.
Since you say your claims were for duplicate payments, however,
this provision of the law doesn’t govern. Duplicate payments aren’t overcharges; they’re merely erroneous disbursements that in law are treated no differently in transportation than in any other economic sector.
(To be sure, the Code of Federal Regulations has specific provisions dealing with claims for duplicate payments as well as overcharges filed against carriers; 49 CFR Part 378. The provisions, however, are toothless and aren’t relevant in this context.)
Therefore, the pertinent time limit is that established by the general statute of limitations of the state whose laws govern your claims. I don’t know what state that would be in your case, so I don’t know how long it allows; perhaps three years might be correct.
But you’re missing a key point. The statute doesn’t set times for the filing of claims, but rather for the filing of lawsuits. To toll the statute, you have to actually present your case in court.
Now I suppose an argument could be made that by stalling over your claims, the carrier(s) were suggesting the claims would ultimately be paid, thereby discouraging you from suing. But that’s pretty lame, especially given the amount of time that’s lapsed; I doubt mightily that you’d prevail in court.
Much more to the point, it isn’t you who have standing to file the lawsuit. You didn’t double-pay these bills, your client did. Therefore, only your client can sue to recover its money.
Since you say the client is offering you “no help,” that clearly isn’t going to happen. What’s more, considering your original claims are now at least 3 years old and were filed sometime after the cause of action occurred — the duplicate payments were made — a lawsuit is probably time-barred by now.
The same considerations also
suggest that you not waste time and energy trying to bring this matter before the STB. I certainly understand your frustration about these unpaid claims; but not only do you lack standing to take the case into any legal forum, the board wouldn’t hear you even if that weren’t the case. (The CFR rule isn’t theirs, but rather is maintained by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.)
The most important lesson to learn from this experience is that claiming against a carrier won’t trigger most legal time limits; you actually have to initiate legal action.
There’s one exception to this rule. The provisions of 49 U. S.C. Section 13710(a)( 3)(B) relating to “billing disputes” say shippers must notify carriers of any such “disputes” within 180 days from the date they receive the disputed bill. Here filing a claim is enough.
But the purpose of such a claim is merely to preserve the shipper’s right to subsequently sue the carrier if the dispute isn’t resolved voluntarily. It doesn’t extend the time limit for filing such a lawsuit, which remains at 18 months for overcharges, measured from the date of delivery of the relevant shipment.
As for duplicate payments, once again the 180-day “dispute” time limit has no applicability. The shipper isn’t disputing the carrier’s bill; it’s simply saying it paid the bill too many times. That’s quite a different matter and, as I say, isn’t covered by transportation law. JOC
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