In a 9-0 decision handed down this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that freight brokers can be sued under state law for negligently hiring unsafe motor carriers. The decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC eliminates a federal preemption shield the broker industry has leaned on since 2023, putting every broker operating in the United States back inside state tort exposure.

What happened in the case

Shawn Montgomery was sitting in a parked vehicle on an Illinois highway in 2017 when a speeding semi struck him. He lost part of a leg. According to court filings, the driver had been cited for careless driving in a previous crash, and the carrier had been involved in at least three crashes in roughly five months before Montgomery was hit.

Montgomery sued C.H. Robinson, the freight broker that arranged the load. His theory was straightforward: the broker had access to FMCSA safety data showing red flags on the carrier, and hired the carrier anyway. C.H. Robinson moved to dismiss, arguing that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA) preempted state tort claims against brokers because the statute bars states from regulating broker prices, routes, and services.

The trial court agreed with C.H. Robinson, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed, consistent with its 2023 decision in Ye v. GlobalTranz and the Eleventh Circuit’s 2023 ruling in Aspen American Insurance v. Landstar Ranger. Both circuits had given brokers a federal shield against negligent-hiring claims.

The Supreme Court reversed.

The Court’s reasoning

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for a unanimous Court, held that the FAAAA’s safety exception preserves state negligent-hiring claims against brokers. The statute carves out an exception for state regulation related to motor vehicle safety, and the Court found that a negligent-hiring claim against a broker who arranged transport with an unsafe carrier falls within that exception. A claim alleging the broker put an unsafe vehicle on the road is, by definition, about motor vehicle safety. The argument that brokers should be treated differently from carriers under the statute did not carry the day.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a concurrence joined by Justice Samuel Alito. Kavanaugh agreed with the outcome but flagged that the case was closer than the majority opinion suggested. His main concern was practical: if federal law preempted state tort claims and Congress had imposed no federal safety duty on broker selection, brokers would operate in what amounts to a regulatory black hole. Kavanaugh also warned that the decision will likely raise litigation and insurance costs that may eventually flow through to consumer prices. Even so, he wrote, truck safety is a matter of life and death.

What this means for brokers

The federal preemption defense is gone. Every broker arranging transportation in the United States is now subject to state tort law in every jurisdiction where they do business.

In practical terms, the carrier-selection process becomes the central legal question in any future broker liability case. Did the broker check the carrier’s FMCSA safety data? Did the broker have a documented procedure for evaluating crash rates, out-of-service percentages, conditional ratings, or prior enforcement history? Or did the broker book the cheapest truck on the board and move on?

All of that is discoverable. All of it is admissible. All of it can be presented to a jury.

Brokers who currently rely on a carrier’s federal authority and active insurance as their entire vetting process are now meaningfully exposed. Expect insurance underwriters to react quickly, and expect indemnity language in shipper-broker-carrier contracts to be rewritten over the next several months.

What this means for fleet managers and carriers

For motor carriers, the practical effect cuts in two directions. Your FMCSA safety profile is now a direct factor in whether brokers will book you. Carriers with elevated crash rates, conditional safety ratings, or recent out-of-service flags will find load boards harder to access, because brokers will be nervous about the liability tail. And indemnity demands flowing back from brokers are going to get more aggressive. Expect contracts that push more of the liability risk onto the carrier.

For shippers, broker due diligence is about to get slower and more expensive. The cheapest broker may not be the safest one, and the safest broker is now the one with the most defensible carrier-vetting process.

What to do now

If you operate a fleet, pull your SMS data this week. Know what brokers see when they look at your carrier profile. If your numbers are weak, the cost of fixing them just went up significantly, because the cost of not fixing them is going to start showing up in lost loads.

If you operate a brokerage, your carrier-selection process is no longer an internal operational question. It is a legal document. Treat it that way.

The full opinion in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC is available through the Supreme Court of the United States.

Source: U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, decided May 14, 2026; reporting from the Associated Press.