A unanimous Supreme Court ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, 608 U.S. ___ (May 14, 2026) just changed what every business that ships goods needs to know about who is responsible when something goes wrong on the road.

What Happened

Shawn Montgomery was parked on the shoulder of a highway when a truck veered off course and struck him. He lost his leg. The truck was operated by Caribe Transport II, a motor carrier hired by C.H. Robinson—one of the country's largest freight brokers—to haul a load of plastic pots. At the time C.H. Robinson hired Caribe Transport, the carrier had a “conditional” safety rating from federal regulators, with documented deficiencies in driver qualifications, hours of service, inspection and maintenance, and crash rates. Montgomery sued C.H. Robinson for negligent hiring. He argued that the broker knew or should have known that dispatching a carrier with that safety record was likely to cause an accident. 

C.H. Robinson’s defense was simple: federal law made it immune. For decades, freight brokers had relied on the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which generally prevents states from imposing laws relating to broker services, as a near-automatic shield against negligent hiring claims. Courts across the country were split on whether that shield held.

The Circuit Split Before Montgomery

Plaintiffs Won – broker can be sued

• Ninth Circuit: Miller v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 976 F.3d 1016 (9th Cir. 2020) — the first circuit court to rule on the question. The Ninth Circuit held that a negligent-hiring claim against a freight broker falls within the FAAAA's safety exception, which preserves state authority to regulate safety "with respect to motor vehicles."

• Sixth Circuit: Cox v. Total Quality Logistics, Inc., 142 F.4th 847 (6th Cir. 2025), decided July 8, 2025 — the case that finally forced the Supreme Court's hand. Greta Cox was killed in a crash caused by a carrier hired by freight broker Total Quality Logistics. The Sixth Circuit aligned with the Ninth Circuit and held the claim was not preempted.

Brokers Won – Plaintiffs’ claims dismissed

• Eleventh Circuit: Aspen American Insurance Co. v. Landstar Ranger, Inc., 65 F.4th 1261 (11th Cir. 2023) — the Eleventh Circuit held that negligent-hiring claims against freight brokers are preempted by the FAAAA and do not fall within the safety exception, reasoning that because brokers do not own or operate the trucks, their carrier-selection decisions are not "with respect to motor vehicles."

• Seventh Circuit: Ye v. GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc., 74 F.4th 453 (7th Cir. 2023) — decided the same year as Aspen and reaching the same result. This decision was also the controlling precedent that caused the lower court in Montgomery itself to dismiss the claim against C.H. Robinson — making it the direct ancestor of the Supreme Court case.

On May 14, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the shield does not hold. Justice Barrett reasoned that requiring a freight broker to exercise ordinary care when selecting a carrier “concerns” motor vehicles and therefore falls within the FAAAA’s express safety exception, which preserves state authority to regulate motor vehicle safety. The federal preemption defense that had been defeating these claims in the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits no longer exists anywhere in the country. 

Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Alito, concurred separately and noted that the prior legal landscape had created what he described as a “black hole” of accountability—federal law imposed no meaningful safety regulation on broker carrier-selection practices, while state tort law had been blocked from filling the gap. That gap is now closed. 

What This Means if Your Business Ships Goods

The ruling affects businesses on both sides of the broker relationship—and the exposure is different depending on which side you are on.

If you use freight brokers to move your products: Your broker’s carrier-selection practices are now a litigation variable in any accident involving your shipment. Shippers will push stricter vetting standards, carrier safety rating floors, insurance verification requirements, audit rights, and indemnification language into broker agreements. If your current broker contracts do not require the broker to document how it selects carriers, that is a gap that plaintiffs’ attorneys will exploit.

If you are a freight broker or logistics coordinator: Brokers without formalized and documented carrier-vetting procedures now face heightened scrutiny, increased defense costs, and more pressure from shippers to prove how each carrier was selected. The ruling does not make every broker automatically liable for every accident — ordinary negligence still requires proving that the broker knew or should have known the carrier was unsafe. But the standard of care is now established, and documenting that you met it is the difference between a defensible case and an indefensible one. 

What to look out for going forward

1. From Congress: Justice Kavanaugh explicitly noted that brokers and their allies “may of course (among other possibilities) ask Congress and the President to change federal law.”  This framing could accelerate legislative proposals in several forms: a statutory amendment adding a safety exception to subsection (b) to resolve the interstate/intrastate anomaly, a federal safe harbor for brokers who meet defined due diligence standards, or minimum federal safety-selection requirements for brokers that could preempt state tort claims through a more comprehensive regulatory scheme.
2. From courts: Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence also emphasized that brokers “should be able to successfully defend against state tort suits if the brokers have acted reasonably and arranged transportation with reputable trucking companies” effectively signals that the standard of care should be manageable. Lower courts adjudicating these claims on remand, and in the wave of cases that will follow, may rely on these passages to cabin the scope of broker liability. Specifically, courts could:
   1. Set a relatively modest due diligence standard focused on reviewing publicly available safety ratings from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
   2. Apply proximate-cause requirements robustly to dismiss claims where the broker’s selection was not closely connected to the specific accident.
   3. Grant summary judgment to brokers who can demonstrate reasonable selection practices, treating Kavanaugh’s observations as persuasive authority on the contours of the negligence standard.

Three Things to Do Before Your Next Shipment

1. Pull your carriers’ FMCSA SAFER data today. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SAFER database is publicly available and free. Any carrier you use — or that your broker uses on your behalf — with a “conditional” or “unsatisfactory” safety rating, open enforcement actions, or elevated out-of-service rates is now documentary evidence in a potential negligent hiring claim. Review it the way a plaintiff’s attorney will.

2. Update your broker contracts. Review your transportation agreements for indemnification language, insurance requirements, and carrier-selection standards — and require your broker partners to document their vetting process in writing. A broker contract that is silent on carrier selection standards is a contract that was drafted before Montgomery changed the law. 

3. Confirm your insurance coverage. Talk to your insurance broker about whether your current liability coverage responds to a negligent-selection claim, and confirm that your contingent auto and contingent cargo coverage is adequate — because insurance markets will take time to recalibrate to the new liability landscape, and the businesses that act before renewals will be better positioned than those that wait.