Pilot Flying J Gas Rebate Class Action Lawsuits Consolidated

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Seven class action lawsuits filed against truck-stop operator Pilot Flying J were consolidated by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Monday.

The Pilot Flying J class action lawsuits, filed in six district courts across four states, accuse Pilot of cheating truckers out of agreed-upon diesel fuel rebates. The panel of judges said it would combine the class action lawsuits and assign the case to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

Pilot Flying J, a truck-stop operator run by Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, operates trucks stops in Alabama, Ohio, New Jersey and New Mexico.

The class action lawsuits claim that Pilot had a fuel rebate program in which Pilot was required to credit or refund a certain percentage of fuel purchases for members of the program. However, since at least Jan. 1, 2005, Pilot engaged in an intentional scheme to defraud and cheat the trucking company members of the fuel rebate program, intentionally reducing and withholding fuel rebates and discounts in order to increase Pilot’s profits, the Pilot class action lawsuit alleges.

The panel had considered consolidating the Pilot lawsuits previously, but had decided not to pending the developing of a nationwide class action settlement. Once the Pilot Flying J ettlement was approved in November 2013, with an expected payout of $72 million to 5,500 class members, the consolidation question was brought up once again.

According to the transfer order, “in opposing centralization, plaintiffs argue that there are relatively few actions pending, and that alternatives to centralization can minimize any overlap in discovery and pretrial proceedings. We are not persuaded that there are too few cases for the litigation to benefit from centralization. There are seven cases pending in six different courts, and most involve separate counsel.”

There were also 50 plaintiffs who opted out of the Pilot Flying J class action settlement, which led the panel to believe still more class action lawsuits would be filed.

The key point, however, was regarding the FBI investigation of Pilot Flying J’s Knoxville, Tenn. headquarters, and the panel agreed with the argument that the consolidation would be in the best interest of company witnesses.

“Much of the discovery in this litigation may be case-specific, but the fraud is alleged to have been centrally driven by Pilot management — the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation has revealed that the fraudulent calculations of rebate amounts due were performed at Pilot headquarters,” the panel explains.”Moreover, it has been alleged that Pilot sales managers were instructed at company meetings as to how to perpetrate the fraud.”

Centralization, the panel went on, “will avoid repetitive depositions of Pilot’s officers and employees and duplicative document discovery regarding the alleged scheme.”

The panel concluded: “We find that these seven actions involve common questions of fact, and that centralization in the Eastern District of Kentucky will serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses and promote the just and efficient conduct of the litigation.”

The class action lawsuit members include all individuals or entities that participated in the Flying J fuel rebate program from Jan. 1, 2005 to the present, who were not members to the November 2013 class action settlement. The plaintiffs are seeking damages and expenses.

The Flying J Fuel Rebate Class Action Lawsuit is In re: Pilot Flying J Fuel Rebate Contract Litigation (No. II), Case No. 2515, before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.