Bad Match, Big Consequences: Supreme Court Holds Freight Brokers Accountable for Negligent Carrier Selection

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, freight brokers are the transportation industry’s “matchmakers, connecting sellers of goods to the carriers who move them.” Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, No. 24-1238, slip op. at 1 (U.S. May 14, 2026). Those matchmakers now potentially face liability when they make a bad match.

Last week, in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, the Court unanimously held that state-law negligent hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA). States, the Court concluded, retain authority to regulate motor vehicle safety under the Act’s express safety exception. Justice Barrett wrote for the Court; Justice Kavanaugh concurred, joined by Justice Alito.

The case began with an accident on an Illinois highway. Shawn Montgomery had pulled his tractor-trailer onto the shoulder when a driver employed by carrier Caribe Transport II veered off the road and struck him. Montgomery lost his leg. In addition to suing the driver and Caribe, Montgomery sued freight broker C.H. Robinson, contending it had negligently selected a carrier it knew, or should have known, posed a safety risk. C.H. Robinson argued that federal law barred the claim outright.

The dispute turned on two provisions of the FAAAA. The preemption clause, §14501(c)(1), bars states from enforcing laws “related to a price, route, or service” of any motor carrier or broker “with respect to the transportation of property.” The “safe harbor” provision, §14501(c)(2)(A), carves out an exception, stating that the preemption clause “shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.” The question was whether a negligent hiring claim falls within that carve-out. The Court held that it does.

Justice Barrett’s reasoning was direct: “Requiring C.H. Robinson to exercise ordinary care in selecting a carrier therefore ‘concerns’ motor vehicles — most obviously, the trucks that will transport the goods. So Montgomery’s negligent-hiring claim falls within the FAAAA’s safety exception, which saves it from preemption.”

C.H. Robinson argued that reading the exception so broadly would render the preemption clause meaningless, but the Court was unpersuaded. As Barrett wrote, “the safety exception saves only a subset of preempted claims: those involving regulations concerning motor vehicle safety. State laws related to motor carrier prices, routes, and services that have no relationship to safety remain preempted.” On the intrastate anomaly raised by the companies — why Congress would protect brokers for intrastate transportation but not interstate — the Court’s answer was to the point: “Better to live with the mystery than to rewrite the statute.”

Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence, while agreeing with the outcome, highlighted the difficulty of the question. “As I see it, the conflicting contextual considerations make this a close case,” he wrote, acknowledging that the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits “raised a number of powerful points” in coming out the other way. But his bottom line was firm: “I do not believe that Congress, through such oblique language in an economic-deregulation statute, simultaneously (i) allowed state tort suits against negligent trucking companies and (ii) categorically preempted state tort suits against upstream brokers who negligently select an unsafe trucking company.”

Justice Kavanaugh took pains to characterize the ruling narrowly. Brokers “just have to hire carriers that actually have a reasonable policy,” and “the broker is not going to have a problem if it’s asking the hard questions of the carrier,” he noted, quoting plaintiff’s counsel. He also acknowledged brokers’ concerns: “state tort law can be unpredictable, and the costs to brokers of litigation and insurance may be significant even when brokers prevail,” and those costs “will cascade through the economy and be paid in part by American consumers in the form of higher prices.” Those are legitimate concerns, he concluded — and are for Congress to weigh, not the courts.

For industry, the practical message is clear: solidify and document your vetting process, “have a reasonable policy” for carrier selection, ask hard questions of the carriers you do select, and understand that a broker who knowingly or without care hires an unsafe carrier may suffer the consequences in tort law.