Pilot sues shut-down trucking company over $800,000 in unpaid fuel charges

A recently shuttered trucking company is facing more bad news as truck stop giant Pilot has filed suit over hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid fuel charges.

On Tuesday, June 11, Pilot Travel Centers LLC filed a civil suit against the now closed Youngstown-based trucking company Falcon Transport LLC in in the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in Ohio, according to a report from the Youngstown Vindicator. Counterpoint Capital Partners, which bought Falcon in 2017, was also named in the lawsuit.

The suit claims that Pilot would invoice Falcon for fuel purchased by its drivers, but that when the company suddenly closed down on April 27, 2019, invoices from April 11 to April 25 were not paid. The invoices total $796,983, according to the lawsuit.

The suit seeks the unpaid fuel costs plus interest and litigation costs.

When Falcon closed unexpectedly, they informed their 585 truck drivers via email and text message to let them know that the company was closing down and that they must stop working immediately. More than 100 office and administrative workers were also laid off. At the time, many drivers reported being stranded out on the road with no way to get home.

Falcon later said that they didn’t inform their drivers about the mass layoff because doing so would have hurt their chances of obtaining further funding.