A yearlong investigation by USA TODAY found that port trucking companies in southern California have spent the past decade forcing drivers to finance their own trucks by taking on debt they could not afford. Companies then used that debt as leverage to extract forced labor and trap drivers in jobs that left them destitute. If a driver quit, the company seized his truck and kept everything he had paid towards owning it. If drivers missed payments, or if they got sick or became too exhausted to go on, their companies fired them and kept everything. Since 2010, at least 1,150 port truck drivers have filed claims in civil court or with the California Department of Industrial Relations’ enforcement arm, known as the labor commission. Judges have sided with drivers in more than 97 percent of the cases heard, ruling time after time that port truckers in California can’t legally be classified as independent contractors. Instead, they are employees who, by law, must be paid minimum wage and can’t be charged for the equipment they use at work.