Shipper Load and Count: What the Driver Signed
The bill says SL&C, the receiver is short ten pieces, and the driver never looked in the trailer. That can be a defense. It is a defense only if the signature matches what the driver actually did.
Statement
Not a slogan
Seal
Intact is the defense
POD
Clean or specific
Your count
You own the number
Ahmad Qazi
Founder & CEO, O Trucking LLC
Fact-Checked by O Trucking Owner-Operator Desk
Explains the SL&C signature without a general BOL class
Sources:
Written by Ahmad Qazi, founder of O Trucking LLC, drawing on 9+ years dispatching for owner-operators. Learn more about us.
O TruckingShipper Load and Count: What the Driver Signed
Key Takeaways
- SL&C is a statement that the driver did not load and did not count.
- Do not sign it after you have counted, and do not sign a piece count you did not make.
- Photograph the seal, write the number on the POD, and compare it to the bill.
- A broken seal means stop, call, and get the instruction in writing before you unload.
- A clean POD is the claimant's exhibit. Put the exception on the receipt at the dock.
- Once you sign a driver count, that count is the carrier's count.
What the abbreviation actually says
Shipper load and count, often printed SL&C or SLC, is a statement on the bill of lading. The shipper loaded the freight. The shipper counted the freight. The driver did not. Carriers sign it because the dock is a drop-hook, or because the trailer was sealed before the driver arrived, or because the shipping clerk slides a pen across the counter and says everyone signs it. The words do not become true because the clerk is in a hurry.
The statement matters later because a shortage claim asks who was in a position to know the count. If the driver never had the doors open, the driver is not the person who should be treated as having certified a carton count. If the driver did have the doors open and did count, the abbreviation is a lie on the carrier's signature. Sign the truth. The truth is either "I did not count" or "I counted this many." It is not both.
This is not a tour of every bill-of-lading box. Who the consignee is, and what delivery means, is already written. Stay on the count.
When a driver should not sign a count they did not make
Two refusals are required, and they are opposites. Do not sign SL&C if you counted. Do not sign a piece count if you did not count the pieces. Drivers get this backward under pressure. A shipper who loaded 22 pallets in front of you wants the SL&C stamp so the shortage, if there is one, stays with a story that no longer fits. A shipper who sealed the trailer before you arrived wants you to write "22 pallets, 440 cartons" because that is what the order says. You saw neither the 440 nor, if you did not watch the load, the 22.
Write what you did. "Shipper load and count, trailer sealed, seal number 44190" is a statement you can defend if you did not count. "22 pallets shipper load and count" is a statement you can defend if you counted pallets and did not count cartons, and only if you are honest that the pallet count is yours and the carton count is not. The moment the carton number is in your handwriting as your count, you have certified it. There is no later speech that gives the certification back.
If the shipper will not release the trailer unless you sign a false count, call the broker before you sign. A load you refuse to certify is a problem at the dock. A load you falsely certify is a claim at the receiver, with your signature on the wrong side of it.
An intact seal plus SL&C
The best shortage defense on this kind of bill is boring and physical. The seal number on the bill is the seal number on the door. The seal is intact. You photograph the seal, the number, and the latch before anyone cuts it. You write the number on the delivery receipt. You compare it to the bill in front of the person who wants the doors open.
Do that even when the guard says they know the carrier and the seal is always fine. The photograph is the defense when, three weeks later, nobody remembers the door. A seal number in your memory is not a seal number. A number you write after the doors have been open for an hour is a weaker number. Take the picture while the seal is still the thing holding the door.
An intact matching seal does not prove the shipper counted correctly. It supports the argument that whatever was short was short when the shipper sealed the trailer, because the driver did not have a chance to lose it. That is the point of the notation. It is not a magic stamp that erases a claim. It is the fact you will need when the claim arrives.
Photograph the seal before it is cut
Write the number on the POD. Compare it to the bill. An intact seal you cannot prove is a story.
A broken seal plus SL&C
If the seal is missing, cut, or a different number, SL&C is a weaker story. Someone had the doors. You may not know who. Unloading anyway, because the receiver is waving you into the door, turns the mystery into a shortage the carrier is explaining with no seal record. Stop. Call the broker before you unload. Get the instruction in a message or an email. A verbal "just dump it" is how the claim lands on the carrier with a clean receipt.
The steps for the seal itself are on the broken-seal page. Use them. Then come back to the count. If you unload after a broken seal, do not sign SL&C as if the seal had been intact, and do not invent a carton count while you unload unless you actually count. Write that the seal was broken or mismatched, who broke it if you know, and that the original notation was shipper load and count. Specific facts beat a stamp that is no longer true.
How the POD either saves you or ends you
The delivery receipt is the document the claimant waves. "Received in good order," with a signature and no exception, is an exhibit that the freight arrived as billed. Exceptions have to be on that paper, at the dock, not in a note you text yourself from the truck stop. Ask the receiver to initial the exception. If the receiver will not, note the refusal and the name. The shortage-notation page is the detail on how to write a short count. Here the point is narrower. A clean POD gives away the SL&C defense you drove across the country to keep, because a clean POD says the count was fine.
If you did not count, do not save the defense by writing a piece count you did not make. Write the seal number, write shipper load and count, and write any exception the receiver is claiming without adopting it as your count. "Receiver claims 10 cartons short, driver did not count, seal 44190 intact" is a different sentence from "10 short." The first sentence keeps the roles straight. The second sentence can be read as your count.
What you write if you did count
If you counted, write the number you counted and sign it as your count. You do not get SL&C protection after you wrote a number. Drivers sometimes count the pallets, sign SL&C out of habit, and then argue they never really counted. The habit is the problem. A pallet count is a count. Cartons inside a wrapped pallet may still be the shipper's inner count, which is the said-to-contain problem, not a reason to stamp SL&C over a pallet number you verified.
If the count you make does not match the bill, do not leave the dock on a mismatch you have already seen. Call the shipper and the broker, note the difference on the bill, and do not let a corrected number appear only in a message you cannot find later. A driver count, once signed, is the carrier's count. Treat the pen as if the claim file is already open, because the claim file will treat it that way.
Pro Tip
The consignee page can wait. The seal page can wait until the seal is wrong. The signature you are about to make cannot wait, and it is the whole of this article.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is SL&C the same as said to contain?
No. SL&C says the shipper loaded and counted, usually a trailer the driver did not watch. Said to contain is the shipper's statement of an inner count the driver could not see, often on a pallet the driver did count as a pallet. They can appear together. They are not synonyms. Use the STC page for that notation.
The shipper asked me to sign SL&C after I watched them load and I counted the pallets. Should I?
No. If you counted, sign the count you made. Signing SL&C after you counted is a false statement about who counted. You will not get the unread-trailer defense for a trailer you read.
The seal matches and the receiver says the cartons are short. Am I done?
You are in the best version of the defense: shipper load and count, seal intact, seal number matched, photos before the door opened. You still note what the receiver claims, without adopting a piece count you did not make. The claim can still be filed. The notation is how you answer it.
The receiver cut the seal in the guard shack before I arrived at the door. What now?
That is a broken-seal event. Note who cut it, do not sign a clean delivery, and call before you treat the trailer as an ordinary SL&C unload. The broken-seal page is the next step.
Can I add SL&C at delivery if I forgot it at pickup?
You can write what is true. If you did not count at pickup, say that, and say whether the seal you recorded at pickup is the seal at delivery. Writing SL&C for the first time over a shortage, after you have already signed a piece count, does not erase the piece count.
Is this a full bill-of-lading lesson?
No. The consignee's role and the general BOL claims page already exist. This page is only what SL&C says and what the seal and the POD do to it.
Sign the count you made. Do not sign the count you did not make.
O Trucking does not adjust cargo claims. After authority is ACTIVE, dispatch is a flat weekly fee.