05/15/2026
SUPREME COURT OPENS THE DOOR TO
“BROKER LIABILITY”
Safety responsibility does not stop at the dispatch screen.
That’s the message the U.S. Supreme Court sent today, May 14, 2026, in one of the most consequential trucking rulings in years.
In a unanimous 9-0 decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, the Court ruled that freight brokers can still face state negligence lawsuits for hiring unsafe carriers. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion. Justices Kavanaugh and Alito filed a concurrence saying the case was closer than the majority let on — but they agreed with the result.
The ruling does not mean brokers are automatically liable for every crash. What it does mean is brokers can no longer hide behind federal preemption when they’re accused of negligently selecting a carrier with a bad safety record.
Here’s the legal hook in plain language. For years, brokers have argued that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act — the 1994 law that deregulated trucking — preempts state lawsuits against them. The FAAAA has a “safety exception” that preserves a state’s authority to regulate safety “with respect to motor vehicles.” Brokers said that exception didn’t cover them because they don’t own or drive trucks. The Court disagreed. Requiring a broker to exercise ordinary care when selecting a carrier concerns motor vehicles. Period. As Barrett put it, Congress passed the FAAAA to deregulate the economics of trucking, not to deregulate safety.
The case goes back to 2017. Shawn Montgomery was a trucker himself, stopped on the shoulder of an Illinois highway, when a Mack truck driven by Yosniel Varela-Mojena veered off course and hit him. Montgomery’s leg had to be amputated. Varela-Mojena was hauling a load of plastic pots for Caribe Transport II — a carrier C.H. Robinson had hired. Montgomery argued the broker knew or should have known that Caribe had a “conditional” safety rating from FMCSA, with documented deficiencies in driver qualifications, hours of service, maintenance, and crash rate.
For years, the trucking industry has run on a system where the cheapest truck often got the freight. This decision changes the math. Brokers who want to limit their exposure will have to look harder at safety scores, violation histories, insurance, and compliance before they hand out a load.
And this isn’t only a broker story. It’s a carrier story too.
If brokers tighten up their vetting, the carriers with weak CSA scores, lapsed insurance, sketchy authority, or a string of out-of-service violations are going to find it harder to land loads. Chameleon carriers and bottom-feeders just got squeezed. Safe operators just picked up an edge. The smartest brokers will turn carrier vetting into a competitive advantage and market it to their shippers.
Expect some downstream effects. Rates may tick up as brokers price in the new risk. Insurance markets will adjust. Carrier safety and compliance software companies are going to have a very good year.
The Court did not eliminate broker protections entirely. Plaintiffs will still have to prove negligence in court — that the broker actually knew or should have known the carrier was unsafe, and that hiring them caused the crash. That’s a real burden. But the door is now open in a way it wasn’t yesterday.
Across the industry tonight, brokers, carriers, insurers, and attorneys are all trying to figure out what changes next.
For drivers, the answer is simpler. The trucks sharing the road with you tomorrow morning are going to be — slowly, imperfectly, but really — a little safer than the ones sharing it with you last week.
Safety responsibility does not stop at the dispatch screen. The Supreme Court just made that the law.
Will. — Just “A Driver’s Perspective”
May 14, 2026
