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About 80 drivers employed by a Hendricks County trucking company likely delivered their last loads and headed home, after a suspension of their company's operations Wednesday by a U.S. bankruptcy judge.
Quick thinking by a banker helped keep many of those drivers from being stranded.
R.L. Carter Trucking ground to a halt after U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Anthony J. Metz ordered the Clayton-based company to be liquidated through Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
In business for about 20 years, R.L. Carter employed about 115 workers, including about 100 drivers who transported petroleum, chemicals and dry bulk loads, according to its website.
As the ruling came down Wednesday afternoon, a number of the drivers were out on routes nationwide and unaware of the proceedings or of their company's fate. In fact, many of them didn't find out until stopping to fill up.
As the drivers ran their company's gas card, they received a message to call a hotline to receive assistance.
"I personally spoke to 15 to 20 of those drivers, and none of them had any idea this was coming," said Curtis Sutherland, director of operations for TAB Bank in Ogden, Utah.
TAB Bank, which had been R.L. Carter's lender even through the company's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in September, provided the hotline and assistance to ensure the drivers completed their routes, got paid and returned home.
Without that assistance, a bad situation could have become much worse as drivers and their loads, some of which included perishable items, might have been stranded nationwide, Sutherland said.
"It has gone pretty smoothly to this point," he said. "A lot of lenders would have done the same thing we did, because it is in everybody's best interest to have that happen."
Repeated phone calls Thursday to ask R.L. Carter officials about the company's future went unanswered.
However, their bankruptcy attorney, Indianapolis-based Jeffrey Graham, said the company suffered during the recent downturn in the economy and, despite its best efforts -- including trying to reorganize -- it just could not recover.
Sutherland said complaints from equipment lenders and other creditors about not receiving payments led to the judge's ruling Wednesday.
