February 14, 2017

All Modifications to Original Contract Terms MUST be in Writing

 I have talked about documenting verbal agreements in past blogs, but I have recently had three different disputed situations arise that could have easily been averted if the shippers had confirmed with their buyers by email their conversations about how the distressed loads of produce were being resolved. Although the shippers in each case did in fact verbally settle each of these three shipments of produce with their respective customers, unfortunately they failed to confirm their verbal agreement by an email. In each of these cases the buyer somehow did not “recall” the verbal agreement and therefore without written proof (something in writing), those verbal agreements never existed.