Southern Furniture Leasing v. YRC


FILED United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS March 3, 2021 Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________ SOUTHERN FURNITURE LEASING, INC., Plaintiff - Appellant, v. No. 19-3262 YRC, INC.; ROADWAY EXPRESS, INC.; YELLOW TRANSPORTATION, INC.; YRC WORLDWIDE, INC., Defendants - Appellees. _________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Kansas (D.C. No. 2:19-CV-02129-KHV-KGG) _________________________________ Eric D. Barton, Wagstaff & Cartmell, LLP, Kansas City, Missouri (Nicholas W. Armstrong, Price Armstrong, LLC, Birmingham, Alabama, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiff – Appellant. Stephen L. Hill, Jr. (Jacqueline M. Whipple with him on the brief), Dentons US LLP, Kansas City, Missouri, for Defendants – Appellees. _________________________________ Before MATHESON, McHUGH, and EID, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ McHUGH, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ Southern Furniture Leasing, Inc. (“Southern Furniture”) filed this putative class action against a group of less-than-truckload (“LTL”) freight carriers, all predecessors to or current subsidiaries of YRC, Inc. (“YRC”). Southern Furniture’s allegation is that YRC “carried out a widespread and systematic practice of overcharging its customers by intentionally using inflated shipment weights when determining shipment prices.” App. 8. YRC asks that we affirm on the alternate ground that Southern Furniture failed to allege Article III standing. The district court rejected YRC’s standing argument, and we agree with its analysis. The district court granted YRC’s motion to dismiss on the grounds that Southern Furniture had only 180 days to contest the alleged overcharges under 49 U.S.C. § 13710(a)(3)(B). We agree with the district court’s interpretation of § 13710(a)(3)(B) and therefore affirm. I. BACKGROUND A. Factual History YRC is an LTL carrier. This means that YRC “consolidate[s] shipments that do not themselves constitute a full trailer to transport and deliver, generally for manufacturing and retail businesses.” App. 18. A business that wants to contract with YRC for shipping must use its pre- printed two-page form contract, where the only blank terms are for the customer’s contact information and the weight of the shipment. The two-page contract “provides that the weight entered is ‘[s]ubject to correction,’ and that ‘[i]f the description of articles or other information on this bill of lading is found to be incorrect or 2 incomplete, the freight charges must be paid based upon the articles actually shipped.’” App. 18 (alterations in original). YRC does not always rely on a customer’s weight estimate when it assesses charges. Rather, the industry standard is for YRC to charge based on actual weight if it reweighs the shipment in question. If the actual weight is greater than the customer’s weight estimate, that is a “positive reweigh.” App. 19. Conversely, if the actual weight is less than the customer’s weight estimate, that is a “negative reweigh.” App. 19. Starting in September 2005, YRC eliminated negative reweigh corrections, resulting in overcharges. YRC did not, however, inform its customers about its revised reweigh policy. In December 2018, the Department of Justice unsealed a qui tam complaint that revealed YRC’s reweighing scheme. Only then did Southern …

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