Scandal-Ridden Company Destroys Family Business, Refuses To Pay Jury Verdict
Radius Recycling, Inc., formerly known as Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc., a company who has a scandal-ridden history so disreputable that they had to rename and re-brand themselves in an effort to escape their sordid and scandalous past, may have to rename themselves again. Radius has now destroyed a family-run transportation business owned by Valentin A. Bonilla called V.A.B. Transports ("V.A.B.") and is arrogantly refusing to pay the jury verdict recently rendered against it and in favor of V.A.B.
Even more concerning, Radius is also attempting to collect from Bonilla its alleged litigation costs in the exorbitant amount of $103,675.96, despite the fact that the jury ruled in favor of V.A.B. and against Radius. On December 22, 2025, Radius filed a motion requesting the judge to set aside the recent jury verdict of $35,000 in favor of V.A.B. and to instead issue a judgment in favor of Radius. Radius' motion is scheduled to be heard on March 5, 2026. (Please see Alameda Superior Court Case No. 22CV005633 entitled Valentin A. Bonilla v. Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc.) Radius was sold to the Toyota Corporation on July 25, 2025 for $1.32 Billion (https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/toyota-tsusho-america-acquire-radius-recycling-134-billion-deal-2025-03-13/). Radius used its considerable resources to crush V.A.B. as a family business and now does not want to be held accountable and is refusing to pay the jury verdict, even though V.A.B. was entitled to much more than the $35,000 jury verdict.
From November of 2017 to about March of 2020 V.A.B. provided contract services to Radius by transporting thousands of crushed vehicles between two Radius facilities in Stockton, California. In the jury trial, Radius admitted that V.A.B. provided the transportation services and also admitted that it had not paid V.A.B. any money at all for V.A.B.'s services but then it claimed on technical grounds that it owed V.A.B. no money. Radius had used its superior financial and bullying power not to pay V.A.B. any money at all while V.A.B. was providing the services over a course of over two years, and then spent upwards of one million dollars in legal fees to try to deny V.A.B. the just compensation for its services which V.A.B. deserved. Radius is a predator company which needs to be stopped before it inflicts even more harm on innocent people. For more information, please contact V.A.B.'s attorney, Cyrus Zal. There is a lot more to this story!