About 90 truck drivers and office personnel who worked for Titan Transportation Services Inc., doing business as Sunset Logistics of Grand Rapids, Michigan, say they’re owed their final paychecks and escrow after receiving a string of emails from company executives notifying them that the trucking company was closing its doors.
In an email sent to drivers on Friday that was obtained by FreightWaves, Sunset Logistics said it was waiting on an upcoming meeting with its “lender to find out if we will pay a final paycheck and pay escrow” to the corporate’s drivers and owner-operators.
“It’s of their hands but please understand that we’re doing all the pieces we will to make sure that [you are] paid what you’re owed,” Mason Gainey, customer services and sales agent for Sunset Logistics, said in the e-mail.
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One driver, who asked to stay anonymous for fear of retaliation, said he was about two hours from home on Sept. 29 when notified of the corporate’s closure. The motive force said he was told that Sunset Logistics had been going through financial struggles since March due to economic reasons and that the owner had used a whole bunch of hundreds of dollars of his own money to maintain the business afloat.
The motive force said others working for Sunset Logistics weren’t so lucky and were scattered across the country without working fuel cards after they received word the corporate was ceasing operations.
Those drivers were instructed to return their trucks to the closest Ryder dealership.
While Mason Gainey was listed because the contact for the drivers to call, the e-mail was signed by his father, Harvey N. Gainey III, who goes by “Buddy.” In response to the Michigan secretary of state incorporation documents, Buddy Gaines is listed because the owner, treasurer, secretary and director of Sunset Logistics.
The Gainey family is well-known within the transportation industry. Buddy’s dad, Harvey N. Gainey II, who died in November 2021, owned Michigan-based Gainey Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in 2008 after the senior Gainey did not repay greater than $238 million of a $260 million loan to lender Wachovia Corp.
At the moment, Gainey listed annual revenue of greater than $400 million and had about 2,800 employees nationwide. In response to Transport Topics, Gainey was ranked No. 64 in its 100 listings of U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers in 2008.
As of publication late Friday, Buddy Gainey had not returned FreightWaves’ telephone calls or messages in search of comment.
In response to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SAFER website, Sunset Logistics had 90 power units and the identical variety of drivers.
FMCSA data states its trucks had been inspected 89 times and 23 had been placed out of service in a 24-month period, leading to a virtually 26% rate, which is higher than the industry’s national average of about 22.3%. Drivers for Sunset Logistics were inspected 184 times and 6 were placed out of service, leading to a 3.3% out-of-service rate. The national average is almost 7%.
The corporate’s insurance is slated to be canceled Nov. 4, in keeping with FMCSA’s data.
Over the past 24 months, its trucks have been involved in three injury crashes and 15 towaways.
One former driver said Sunset Logistics had hired 4 recent drivers the week company executives announced it was shutting down.
“I feel bad for those drivers,” the source told FreightWaves. “The corporate wasted their time since the drivers were never in a position to earn any money and were likely stranded.”
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FreightWaves’ Justin Martin contributed to this report.
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