A freight broker can face liability for negligent selection of a motor carrier when it hires a trucking company with a known safety problem and that problem causes a crash. The claim is a state-law negligence theory: the broker owed a duty of reasonable care in choosing a carrier, breached it by ignoring warning signs the industry expects brokers to check, and the breach led to the injury. Whether the claim actually makes it to a jury, though, depends on which federal circuit the case is filed in, because the courts of appeals are split on whether a 1994 federal statute wipes these claims out before trial.
What a Negligent Selection Claim Requires
Freight brokers operate under a professional standard of reasonable care when selecting motor carriers. Before handing a shipment to a trucking company, a broker is expected to investigate that company’s safety background the way a competent industry professional would. When a broker skips that step or ignores warning signs and someone gets hurt, that failure is the foundation of the claim.
Two federal databases define the baseline. The Safety and Fitness Electronic Records system (SAFER) provides free public access to a carrier’s identification, operating status, and safety record.1Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. About the Safety and Fitness Electronic Records System A broker that assigns a load to a carrier without active operating authority has made a selection decision that is difficult to defend. The Safety Measurement System goes deeper, scoring carriers using roadside inspections and crash reports across Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs).2Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Safety Measurement System For property carriers, the public can see percentile scores in five categories: unsafe driving, hours-of-service compliance, vehicle maintenance, controlled substances and alcohol, and driver fitness. Two others, the crash indicator and hazardous materials compliance, are restricted from public view under the FAST Act of 2015.
High percentiles in the public BASICs are the warning flags plaintiffs’ attorneys look for. A carrier in the 90th percentile for vehicle maintenance has a worse inspection record than 90% of its peers. A broker that assigns a load to that carrier and then watches a brake failure cause a pileup faces a much harder defense than one who documented a review of the scores before every assignment.
Formal FMCSA safety ratings sit above the BASICs. The agency issues ratings of Satisfactory, Conditional, or Unsatisfactory after on-site investigations.3Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Safety Ratings Factsheet An Unsatisfactory rating triggers an out-of-service order that shuts the carrier down.4Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Addressing Carriers That Pose a Safety Hazard Hiring a Conditional carrier is not automatically negligent, but it raises the bar for how carefully the broker should examine the rest of the record.
Insurance verification is the other baseline. For-hire property carriers must carry minimum coverage that scales with cargo and vehicle size:
- Non-hazardous freight under 10,001 lbs GVWR: $300,000
- Non-hazardous freight at 10,001 lbs GVWR or more: $750,000
- Certain hazardous materials: $1,000,000
- Explosives, poison gas, or radioactive materials: $5,000,000
Carriers file proof with the FMCSA.5Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Insurance Filing Requirements A broker that fails to confirm active coverage before dispatch has missed a basic screening step and may have sent an uninsurable truck onto the road.
The FAAAA Preemption Problem
The biggest obstacle in any negligent selection lawsuit is a federal statute that was never written with trucking safety in mind. The Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994, codified at 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1), bars states from enforcing any law “related to a price, route, or service” of a motor carrier, broker, or freight forwarder.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 14501 – Federal Authority Over Intrastate Transportation Brokers routinely argue that a state-law negligence claim is an unauthorized regulation of their “service” (choosing and arranging carriers) and ask courts to dismiss these suits before trial.
The same statute includes a safety exception at § 14501(c)(2)(A), preserving the “safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.” Plaintiffs argue a highway-crash claim falls squarely inside that exception. Whether the argument wins depends almost entirely on the circuit.
The Circuit Split
Four federal appeals courts have ruled, and they have split evenly.
Allowing the claims: The Ninth Circuit was first. In Miller v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (2020), it held that negligence claims against brokers arising from motor vehicle accidents have the required connection to motor vehicle safety and fall within the safety exception.7United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Miller v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. The Sixth Circuit reached the same conclusion in Cox v. Total Quality Logistics (2025).
Blocking the claims: The Seventh Circuit held in Ye v. GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc. (2023) that the preemption clause bars negligent selection claims and that the safety exception does not save them.8Justia. Ye v. GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc., No. 22-1805 (7th Cir. 2023) The Eleventh Circuit agreed in Gauthier v. Hard to Stop LLC (2024), holding that claims against brokers are not “with respect to motor vehicles” and fall outside the safety exception.
The practical result is stark. A person injured by the same type of negligently selected carrier may have a viable claim in California or Ohio and face immediate dismissal in Illinois or Florida. The Supreme Court previously denied review of both Miller and Ye, but new petitions, including one from Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC (7th Cir. 2025), keep the issue in front of the Court.
Linking the Carrier’s Record to the Crash
Even where the claim survives preemption, proving the broker’s selection failure actually caused the crash is where most cases get difficult. A court will not hold a broker liable just because the carrier looked bad on paper. The specific deficiency that made the carrier a poor choice must connect to the way the accident happened.
Compare two scenarios. In the first, a broker hires a carrier with a history of paperwork violations (late filings, incomplete logs), and the carrier’s driver runs a red light. The paperwork problems had nothing to do with the collision, and the causal link is too weak. In the second, a broker hires a carrier whose drivers have repeatedly been cited for hours-of-service violations, and a driver for that carrier falls asleep at the wheel. Now the connection is direct: the broker chose a company known for exhausted drivers, and an exhausted driver caused the crash.
Building this link means matching the carrier’s violation history (as documented in the BASICs and inspection reports) against the findings in the official accident report. If the report identifies brake failure, the plaintiff needs a pattern of vehicle maintenance problems the broker could have seen. If the cause was driver impairment, the relevant history is controlled substances and alcohol citations. Without that alignment, a broker may have been sloppy without being legally responsible for the specific harm.
Other Theories Against Brokers
Negligent selection is not the only route to a broker’s assets, and plaintiffs often plead these theories together.
Vicarious Liability Through Control
Vicarious liability turns on whether the broker exerted so much control over the carrier’s operations that a court should treat the carrier as the broker’s agent. Behaviors pointing toward an agency relationship include dictating which truck or trailer to use, specifying the route, setting the driver’s hours, requiring constant check-in calls with fines for noncompliance, and controlling the driver’s schedule and compensation. When a broker gets this deep into the how of the delivery, it begins to look like an employer.
Standard brokerage practices, by contrast, have consistently been held not to create agency. Requiring compliance with federal and state law, specifying insurance minimums, or asking for delivery confirmations does not cross into operational control. The distinction matters because vicarious liability does not require proving a bad selection. If the agency relationship exists, the broker is responsible for the carrier’s negligence regardless of the carrier’s safety record.
The Statutory Employer Doctrine
Under federal motor carrier regulations, a broker is treated as a statutory employer of the carrier and its driver only when the broker owns or leases the commercial vehicle being used for the shipment. If the broker did not provide the equipment, courts have refused to impose statutory employer liability. A broker that also holds motor carrier authority in other contexts is not automatically treated as an employer for every transaction; courts examine the specific shipment at issue.
Double Brokerage
Double brokerage happens when the carrier that accepted a load secretly transfers it to another carrier without the broker’s knowledge or consent. The broker vetted the original carrier, but the truck that actually shows up belongs to a company the broker never screened. If the broker had no way to know the load was transferred, negligent selection becomes harder to prove. But if the broker used a carrier known to re-broker loads, or failed to include a contractual prohibition against re-brokering, that tolerance can itself support a negligent selection theory.
Federal law prohibits re-brokering without separate broker authority and required financial security. A carrier that re-brokers without authority faces civil penalties of up to $14,020 per knowing violation under 2026 inflation-adjusted figures, plus liability to any injured party without regard to amount.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 14916 – Unlawful Brokerage Activities10Federal Register. Civil Monetary Penalties 2026 Adjustment
What a Successful Plaintiff Can Recover
Because negligent selection is a state-law tort claim, available damages track what the state allows in personal injury or wrongful death cases. A plaintiff who proves the broker negligently selected a dangerous carrier and that the selection caused the crash can typically recover compensatory damages: medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and loss of consortium. In wrongful death cases, the family may recover funeral costs, lost future earnings, and loss of companionship under the applicable state’s statute.
Punitive damages are also possible in some states when the broker’s conduct was especially reckless, such as hiring a carrier with an active Unsatisfactory rating or a documented history of fatal crashes. Caps and availability vary by state, which adds a second layer to the geographic lottery created by the preemption split. In jurisdictions where the claim survives, damages exposure for a broker that ignored obvious warning signs can reach into the millions in catastrophic injury cases.
Contractual indemnification complicates recovery in practice. Standard broker-carrier agreements require the carrier to defend and indemnify the broker from claims arising out of the carrier’s performance, which shifts financial responsibility back to the carrier and its insurer. An indemnity clause is only as useful as the carrier’s ability to pay. If the carrier is underinsured or insolvent, the broker remains exposed, which is why the broker’s own insurance and the strength of the negligent selection claim matter even when the paperwork points elsewhere.
Pending Federal Legislation
Congress has noticed the split. The Patrick and Barbara Kowalski Freight Brokers Safety Act was introduced in the House in December 2025 and referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.11Congress.gov. H.R.6884 – 119th Congress (2025-2026) Patrick and Barbara Kowalski Freight Brokers Safety Act Rather than addressing preemption directly, the bill would impose a federal civil penalty equal to 10% of the cargo’s value on any broker that hires a carrier with three or more DOT violations. The same penalty would apply if the carrier employs a driver with three or more violations in the past five years. The bill would also expand FMCSA authority to investigate brokers and impose operating requirements after fatal crashes. It remains in committee and, if enacted, would create a federal enforcement mechanism separate from the preemption fight without resolving whether private plaintiffs can sue under state law.