Owner Operator Withholding My Pay

I was driving for an O/O as a 10-99 employee. It was his truck, he paid fuel, tolls, insurance, and I was at mercy of his dispatch. Long story short I quit and now he will not pay me and saying there is “cosmetic damage” to his truck, what can I do?

I was driving for an O/O as a 10-99 employee. It was his truck, he paid fuel, tolls, insurance, and I was at mercy of his dispatch. Long story short I quit and now he will not pay me and saying there is “cosmetic damage” to his truck, what can I do?

What can you do? Hire a lawyer or don’t do a 1099 job again.

Most people don't understand that a 1099 means a business. You needed to form a business, be registered with the state, the feds, have insurance, file taxes as a business, and most importantly have a contract spelling out the terms, scope of work, payment structure and terms.

Working as an independent contractor is not inherently bad, but you need to actually be a contractor, which means you need to learn how to own and operate a business, not just be some guy driving a truck.

If you had said contract, you might have had some leverage depending on what your business and his business agreed to.

Consider this an expensive business course.

Bill, I'm hoping you learned something here. Most of the important things in life, I learned the hard way.

Everything Davy said was right. You are not a 1099 contractor when the company you’re contracted to owns the assets by which you are producing revenue. You'd have to own the truck and be paying all the fuel and expenses to provide your services. You fell for the scam. Don't beat yourself up - you're far from the only person getting cheated this way. This is far too common in trucking. Move on and don't make that mistake again.

Davy says...

Working as an independent contractor is not inherently bad

I agree with him, but with a caveat. Unless you are an O/O, I've yet to see it work well in trucking. The contractor is purposely trying to avoid payroll expenses that add up significantly. It's almost always a rigged system in trucking. I've heard countless tales just like yours over the years.

You'll always be ahead getting a paycheck that has payroll deductions which are duly reported and paid to the IRS properly.

And expect to be hit with high taxes. 1099 is a business and you have no deductions.

Thanks for the info, I’m not totally out of luck, I talked to an attorney and we are suing for with holding wages, and misclassification of employee. He can now pay up or else goto court and liable for 3 times the amount of wages owed.