SCOTUS Unanimous: Brokers Can Be Sued for Negligent Carrier Selection — What Montgomery v. Caribe Means

The Supreme Court released its opinion in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC this morning. Unanimous. Justice Barrett wrote it. The holding can be stated in one sentence: the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 — the FAAAA — does not preempt state-law claims that a freight broker negligently selected an unsafe motor carrier.

I have been waiting for this case for years and I am not going to pretend I'm not in some way relieved that it landed the way it did. I'm also acutely aware that the response from a lot of brokers is going to be panic, and the response from a lot of plaintiff's lawyers is going to be a fresh round of carrier-file subpoenas. Neither response is wrong, exactly. But the brokers who panic are also the brokers who hadn't been keeping good files anyway, and the plaintiffs' lawyers are going to find what they find regardless. The brokers who built diligence into their process will be fine. The brokers who didn't are about to learn.

Here is what the ruling actually says, what it changes for vetting carriers, and what to do about it this week.

The case in plain English

A serious crash. The driver worked for a motor carrier — Caribe Transport II, LLC — that had what the Court describes as a history of safety problems. The carrier had been selected for that load by a freight broker. The injured plaintiff (and the estate of those killed) sued the broker, alleging negligent selection of a carrier the broker knew or should have known was unsafe.

The broker moved to dismiss on FAAAA preemption grounds. The FAAAA generally preempts state laws "related to a price, route, or service" of a motor carrier or a broker. For more than a decade, brokers had been arguing — and a majority of federal circuits had been agreeing — that state-law negligent-selection claims fell within that preemption because they "related to" the broker's services.

The Court, today, said no. Reading the FAAAA's safety exception (which preserves the safety regulatory authority of a state with respect to motor vehicles) in plain-meaning terms, the Court held that the words "with respect to" mean what they ordinarily mean — concerning, regarding. A negligent-selection claim against a broker concerns motor vehicles because the claim turns on the safety of the motor vehicle the broker selected. That puts the claim inside the safety exception. The FAAAA doesn't preempt it. The case can proceed in state court on the merits.

That reasoning is unanimous. There's no dissent to argue around in future cases. The 7th Circuit's Ye v. GlobalTranz line and the 11th Circuit's similar reasoning are reversed. The 9th Circuit's Miller v. C.H. Robinson line, which had gone the other way, becomes the operative rule nationally.

What this changes

Before today, a broker hit with a state-court negligent-selection claim could file a motion to dismiss on FAAAA preemption grounds and have a meaningful chance of winning that motion — depending on the circuit, often a strong chance. The case ended early. Discovery never started. The broker's carrier files were never opened.

That's over. After Montgomery, the FAAAA preemption motion to dismiss is no longer a viable exit ramp. Brokers will have to defend negligent-selection claims on the merits. That means discovery — which means subpoenas for carrier files, for vetting procedures, for the communications between dispatcher and carrier, for the safety data the broker reviewed (or didn't), and for the rationale the broker recorded (or didn't) at the point of tender.

The structural defense is now a documented diligence file. The broker who shows up to deposition with a carrier file containing: the FMCSA record reviewed at tender; the BASIC percentile snapshot; the insurance verification; the signed safety attestation from the carrier; the reasoned tender note — that broker has a defense. The broker who shows up with "we just ran the MC#" — does not.

What this doesn't change

A few important clarifications.

This is not strict liability for brokers. The Court didn't create a new cause of action. It allowed an existing state-law cause of action to proceed where federal preemption used to bar it. The merits of any given case still have to be proved — duty, breach, causation, damages — under the relevant state's negligence law.

This is not the end of brokering. Brokers will still book loads. Carriers will still haul them. The change is in the documentation discipline.

This is not a federal due-diligence checklist. The Court didn't say "brokers must do X, Y, and Z to satisfy reasonable care." Each state's negligence law will continue to define the standard of care. The practical floor is going to be set by what plaintiff's lawyers can argue is reasonable — and that will draw heavily on what the public FMCSA data discloses about a carrier at the time of tender.

What to do this week

I'll keep this short and practical. Three things.

One: pull every active carrier's record and snapshot it. For every carrier on your dispatch list, capture today the FMCSA snapshot — authority status, insurance L&I record, BASIC percentiles, safety rating, crash count, OOS rates. Time-stamp it. Save it. This is your baseline. If a wreck happens next week, the question "what did the broker know about this carrier at the time of tender" gets answered by your file, not by FMCSA's subsequent updates.

Two: stand up a written attestation flow for every tender going forward. The carrier signs an itemized safety attestation before dispatch confirming pre-trip done, driver qualified, HOS compliant, insurance in force, and a few other items keyed to FMCSR sections. Plus a reliance and indemnification acknowledgment. Two minutes for the carrier. Significant legal weight for you.

Three: write down the rationale. When you tender a load, especially to a carrier with anything flagged on their public record, write one paragraph noting what you saw, what you considered, and why you tendered anyway. Whatever the reason — the carrier explained the flag, the score was trending down, you required additional mitigation, the load profile was low-risk — write it down in the file. One paragraph. The point is not to bulletproof the decision. The point is to show you made a decision.

The brokers who do these three things won't be the ones panicked about Montgomery. They'll be the ones who can point to their files when the depositions start.

A concrete scenario

You tender a load to MC-1289304 / DOT-3019847. The carrier has been operating eight months, has all BASICs in "Insufficient Data," and a clean L&I insurance record at $1M BIPD with PROGRESSIVE COMMERCIAL CASUALTY.

What you do today, post-Montgomery:

1. Snapshot the carrier record in SAFER. Save it with a timestamp.

2. Call the producer listed on the ACORD 25 to confirm coverage. Note the call in the file.

3. Send the carrier a safety attestation request with itemized representations. Get it signed before dispatch.

4. Write a short paragraph: "Carrier has 8 months authority — within the elevated-risk new-entrant window. BASICs Insufficient Data; insurance L&I clean; producer confirmed coverage active 5/14/26 8:42am; signed attestation received 5/14/26 9:11am with all eleven items affirmed plus indemnification acknowledgment. Tendered."

That file is a defensible record. If the load delivers cleanly, you'll never look at it again. If it doesn't, the file is the difference between a case you can defend and a case you can't.

The regulation, in plain English

The legal architecture sitting underneath Montgomery is straightforward. The FAAAA's safety exception is at 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(2)(A). The carrier's safety duties are scattered across 49 CFR Parts 382 (drug/alcohol), 387 (insurance), 391 (driver qualification), 392 (driving rules), 393 (parts and accessories), 395 (HOS), 396 (inspection/repair/maintenance). The broker's recordkeeping duties are in 49 CFR Part 371. None of these substantive rules changed today. What changed is whether state negligence law gets to enforce a duty of care between broker and the public that runs alongside these federal compliance rules.

The answer, as of today, is yes.

How I document this

Today, for every active broker file in my operation:

1. A baseline carrier snapshot for each active carrier — captured today, time-stamped, stored.

2. The attestation flow updated to capture eleven specific representations plus reliance, indemnification, and continuing-duty acknowledgments. Carrier signs before dispatch.

3. The tender note — short paragraph per tender, written contemporaneously, capturing what I saw and why I made the call.

If you're a broker reading this and your honest answer is "I don't have any of those three things in place," start with the attestation flow. It's the highest-leverage line item, the easiest to implement, and the one that turns the legal posture from "broker selected a bad carrier" to "broker required the carrier to confirm, in writing, the things only the carrier could confirm — and the carrier confirmed them."

That distinction is what Montgomery turned into the question of the day for every broker file going forward.

— Mason Lavallet

Founder, DOTScreener.com

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Sources

• Hanson Bridgett — Supreme Court Unanimously Holds Negligent-Hiring Claims Against Freight Brokers Survive FAAAA Preemption
• Bricker Graydon Wyatt — SCOTUS: FAAAA Does Not Preempt Negligent-Selection Claims Against Freight Brokers
• FreightWaves — The Supreme Court just told every freight broker that they can be sued
• Amundsen Davis — U.S. Supreme Court Finds FAAAA Does Not Preempt Negligent Hiring/Selection Claims Against Freight Brokers
• Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer — Broker Liability After Montgomery
• 49 U.S.C. § 14501 — Federal authority over intrastate transportation