Give Me Advice

so my friend started working with a owner of a reefer , he worked 3 weeks all was well, one week he comes back from his trips and leaves truck at yard. gets a call from owner the next day saying he needs key to the back of the trailer, he takes it, they open doors and all is well. Later day, he gets call regarding some damage to doors on the inside. He did not know where damage came from. Owner says, he is looking into it, goes MIA FOR A WEEK, has not paid him for load, stated at one point his wife was in icu and that is why he would not answer the calls. Long story short, he did not get paid for trip, he pressed charges for theft of labor and has filed unemployment. We want to discredit this **** as he has done this to two prior drivers. While my friend was on the road, he was at truck stop and was approached by this driver that said this man owed him money from last trip and is still MIA and wont answer his calls. My friend gave him the benefit of doubt and continued on with him, until this last time.

If he's already filed with the labor board and applied for unemployment there's not much more he can do that is worth doing.

My advice is to forget about it. Not being paid isn't fun, but the best thing he can do is what he's already done: turn him in to the labor board and move on. I've worked for employers that bounced checks, the best thing to do is find another job and let TPTB deal with them.

I agree with C.S. - forget about it and move on. It's one trip. If he owed you $100,000 that would be different. But you're going to get yourself all upset and go on some manhunt for a few hundred bucks? Not worth worrying about. You'd lose a lot more time and money pursuing it than you would ever get back and you're not going to change him in the process anyhow. Chalk it up to a learning experience and move on to a better situation.