As Rich said, you have no idea whether there is bad faith here or not. Your personal disdain for FedEx is clouding your objectivity.
Let's say, for example, the Fed books an NLM load, that they HAVE to cover, and they booked it at $2.00/mile....all in. They send out to the O/O at $1.20, or his 60% (close). Is that bad faith?
With those numbers, and with the contract we had (close), no it would not be a bad-faith offer. Our contract stated that we would receive an exact percentage of the gross pay (and the company had the option to pay more). That number would equate to $1.20 (close), so to offer $1.20 would be good faith act. You present a squeaky-clean hypothetical situation that favors the company.
So, to carry your hypothetical further, when we were with the company, contractors complained bitterly about the dozens and dozens of load offers they received weekly that paid well under $1.00 a mile to the truck. Are you suggesting that the company is now making it a regular practice to bid loads at $1.30 a mile ($0.80 to the truck) to $1.66 a mile ($1.00 to the truck) with the obligation to cover them all and the expectation that they can get the fleet to do so?
Digressing a bit, but hopefully staying on topic as the OP requested, here's a story that illustrates more about what I mean when I say bad faith.
A dispatcher once asked us and we agreed to roll on a load that needed to be picked up because the truck first dispatched on it broke down. We left immediately and got a significant number of miles into it when the load was canceled.
Confused, we called to see what was up. The dispatcher told us that she never took the other truck off the load in case that driver would be able get his truck running again and cover the load. He did just that and she pulled us off the load.
When we asked for dry run pay, she said it could not be paid because the other truck was never taken off the load. We pushed back but the contractor coordinator agreed with the dispatcher and assured us that she had known that dispatcher for years and that it would never happen that the dispatcher would intentionally dispatch two trucks on the same load. This dispatcher was a person of the highest integrity, we were told, and we would have to simply accept the fact that we would not be paid because of her honest mistake.
To me, that's bad faith. It's bad faith to knowingly dispatch two trucks on the same load. It's bad faith to not pay the dry run pay one of the trucks had legitimately earned. It's bad faith to explain away the bad-faith deeds by appealing to the integrity and good intentions of the bad actor.
We did not push beyond thatt. The amount of money was not large, and by that time, because of other such incidents, we were begining to belive the company was beyond redemption.
