Supreme Court Rules on Freight Brokers: Tort Law and Hiring Liability

In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on May 14, 2026, that federal law does not shield freight brokers from state negligent-hiring lawsuits when they select unsafe trucking companies. The decision, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, means a broker anywhere in the country can now be sued under state tort law by someone injured in a crash involving a carrier the broker chose.¹

What the Court Held

The case turned on the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994. Despite its name, the FAAAA is a trucking deregulation statute. It preempts state laws “related to a price, route, or service” of brokers and motor carriers, but it preserves state “safety regulatory authority… with respect to motor vehicles.”² For years, brokers argued that hiring a carrier was a “service” they provide, and that lawsuits attacking their hiring choices were preempted.

Justice Barrett rejected that reading. She interpreted “with respect to” in its ordinary sense: “concerns” or “regards.” A negligent-hiring claim holds a broker to a duty of reasonable care in choosing the carrier that will put a truck on the road. That duty concerns motor vehicles, and it therefore falls within the safety exception Congress wrote into the statute.¹

Barrett acknowledged an awkward feature of the law: the subsection governing intrastate transportation contains no safety exception, while the interstate subsection does. She wrote that “it is not obvious why Congress included a safety exception in (c) but not in (b),” but concluded it would be “even odder” to say a lawsuit about hiring a dangerous trucking company is not an exercise of state safety authority. “Better to live with the mystery than to rewrite the statute,” she wrote.³

The ruling does not gut FAAAA preemption. State laws dictating what a carrier may charge or which routes it may use remain preempted, because those laws have no relationship to motor vehicle safety.³

Kavanaugh’s Concurrence and the Reasonable-Broker Defense

Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Alito, wrote separately to call the case “closer than the Court’s opinion perhaps might suggest.” He agreed with the outcome, noting that the FAAAA aimed at economic deregulation, “not safety deregulation,” and that it would be implausible to immunize brokers while leaving carriers themselves fully exposed to tort claims.¹

Kavanaugh also gave brokers a signal about what liability looks like in practice. Brokers who act reasonably and hire reputable carriers “should be able to successfully defend against state tort suits,” he wrote. He conceded that litigation and insurance costs “will cascade through the economy and be paid in part by American consumers in the form of higher prices,” and told the industry that if it finds those consequences intolerable, it “may of course… ask Congress and the President to change federal law.”³

The Crash and the Hiring Decision Behind the Case

On December 7, 2017, Shawn Montgomery was stopped on the shoulder of Highway 70 in Cumberland County, Illinois, when a tractor-trailer driven by Yosniel Varela-Mojena veered off course and slammed into his truck. Montgomery lost his leg and suffered other severe, permanent injuries.²

Varela-Mojena was hauling plastic pots for Caribe Transport II, LLC, a carrier hired by C.H. Robinson Worldwide, one of the country’s largest freight brokers. At the time of the hiring, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had assigned Caribe Transport a “conditional” safety rating and flagged it for deficiencies in driver qualifications, hours-of-service compliance, vehicle maintenance, and a high crash rate. Montgomery sued the driver, the carrier, and the broker, arguing C.H. Robinson should never have hired Caribe Transport in the first place. His case has now been remanded to the lower courts for further proceedings on the merits.¹

Why State Tort Law Now Matters So Much

Federal oversight of freight brokers is thin. The FMCSA requires brokers to register, maintain a $75,000 surety bond, and use only federally authorized motor carriers.⁴ Beyond confirming that a carrier holds valid operating authority and a USDOT number, federal rules do not require a broker to evaluate a carrier’s safety record, crash history, or inspection results before handing over a load.⁵

Brokers also face no federal insurance mandate for accidents. Trucking companies must carry minimum liability coverage; brokers do not. Kavanaugh’s concurrence described this as a regulatory “black hole” for broker safety accountability.¹

A CBS News investigation published shortly before the ruling identified more than 10,000 new trucking companies approved by the federal government over five years that were run by the same people, or at the same locations, as defunct companies with serious safety records. These “chameleon carriers” were four times more likely to be involved in severe crashes, resulting in at least 141 deaths and 1,800 injuries. C.H. Robinson appeared in the reporting as a broker that had arranged loads for carriers exhibiting hallmarks of that practice.⁶

What Freight Brokers Face Now

Before the ruling, brokers in the Sixth and Ninth Circuits already faced negligent-hiring exposure, while the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits had shielded them. The Supreme Court’s decision extends that exposure nationwide.⁷

The practical response falls on carrier vetting. Brokers are being advised to formalize a documented process for reviewing FMCSA safety data, including CSA scores, out-of-service rates, and enforcement histories, and to keep timestamped records showing the diligence they performed before dispatching a load. Under Kavanaugh’s framing, that paper trail is the defense: a broker who reasonably relied on a reputable carrier’s record should be able to defeat a state tort claim.⁷

Insurance is the other pressure point. Industry analysts have warned that standard contingent auto liability policies may not be enough, and that freight broker liability and errors-and-omissions coverage are becoming essential. “Defense inside the limits” policies carry a particular risk, because defending a multiyear negligent-hiring case can consume six figures in legal costs before any verdict, potentially exhausting the policy limit before a judgment or settlement is paid.⁸

C.H. Robinson’s own June 2026 freight market update described the post-ruling environment as a “more fragmented system” with liability standards varying by state, introducing “new complexity and uncertainty for brokers, shippers, and carriers.”⁹

What It Means for Crash Victims

For someone injured in a truck crash, the ruling adds a potential defendant. If the carrier that caused the crash was underinsured or judgment-proof, the broker that hired the carrier can now be pursued under state negligent-hiring law in any state. Plaintiff-side attorneys Theresa E. Vitale and Kelly Winter Weil of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy called the decision “a clearer pathway for injured plaintiffs to pursue accountability,” noting that the broker becomes an additional source of recovery when the carrier’s coverage is not enough.¹⁰

The theory is fact-driven. A plaintiff still has to show that the broker failed to use reasonable care in selecting the carrier, and, following Kavanaugh’s guidance, brokers who hired carriers with clean records will have a strong defense. Cases like Montgomery’s, involving a carrier already flagged by the FMCSA for safety deficiencies at the time it was hired, are the ones the ruling most directly reaches.

1
Supreme Court of the United States. Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, No. 24-1238
2
Legal Information Institute. Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC
3
SCOTUSblog. Court Rules Freight Brokers Can Face Negligent Hiring Suits Under State Law
4
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Broker and Freight Forwarder Financial Responsibility Rule Overview and Compliance
5
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Small Entity Compliance Guide for Broker Operations
6
CBS News. Chameleon Carrier Trucks Investigation
7
FreightWaves. The Supreme Court Just Told Every Freight Broker That They Can Be Sued
8
M3 Insurance. Montgomery v. Caribe Transport Ruling
9
C.H. Robinson. June 2026 Freight Market Update – Government Regulations
10
Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP. Supreme Court Clarifies Freight Broker Liability in Truck Accident Cases