{"id":54,"date":"2026-05-24T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T21:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=54"},"modified":"2026-05-24T21:38:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T21:38:00","slug":"court-rules-freight-brokers-can-face-negligent-hiring-suits-under-state-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=54","title":{"rendered":"Court rules freight brokers can face negligent hiring suits under state law"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A unanimous Supreme Court  on Thursday in <em>Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II<\/em> that federal law\u00a0does not shield freight brokers from state lawsuits claiming they negligently hired dangerous motor carriers.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=52\">Justice Clarence Thomas reflects on shared values and his \u201cdeeper\u201d friendships on a past court<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The case began on , when Shawn Montgomery suffered severe injuries from an accident on Illinois Interstate 70, leading to the\u00a0amputation\u00a0of his leg and permanent disfigurement. Montgomery had pulled over due to a mechanical issue when a tractor-trailer driven by Yosniel Varela-Mojena apparently veered off the road and rear-ended Montgomery\u2019s stopped vehicle. Varela-Mojena was hauling a load of plastic pots for his employer, , an Indiana-based interstate motor carrier, and the shipment had been arranged by freight broker C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., and its affiliates, under a carrier agreement with Caribe II.<\/p>\n<p>Montgomery sued C.H. Robinson, among others, arguing that the broker was liable because it knew,\u00a0or should have known, that Caribe II was an unsafe choice to ship its goods. The lawsuit rested on the allegation of negligent hiring (i.e., when you engage a contractor for work that poses a physical risk to others, you have a duty to exercise reasonable care in making that choice). Specifically, Montgomery alleged that federal regulators had given the carrier a \u201cconditional\u201d safety rating when C.H. Robinson hired it, finding Caribe II deficient in such areas as driver qualification, hours of service, and crash rates.<\/p>\n<p>C.H. Robinson moved to dismiss, arguing the suit was blocked by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994.\u00a0The FAAAA \u2013 a product of Congress\u2019 effort to deregulate the trucking industry \u2013 preempts (that is, supersedes), in Section 14501(c)(1), state laws \u201crelated to a price, route, or service\u201d of motor carriers or brokers \u201cwith respect to the transportation of property.\u201d A negligent-hiring lawsuit, the company argued, is squarely covered by that. The district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the  agreed, while the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 6th and 9th Circuits had ruled the other way.<\/p>\n<p>Writing for the 9-0 court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett held that C.H. Robinson\u2019s argument collided with an exception in the FAAAA. Namely, pursuant to Section 14501(c)(2)(A),\u00a0the FAAAA\u2019s preemption provision does not apply to \u201cthe safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.\u201d Barrett noted that \u201c[a]ll agree that common-law duties and standards of care form part of a State\u2019s authority to regulate safety.\u201d\u00a0Barrett then interpreted \u201cwith respect to\u201d \u2013 a phrase the FAAAA did not define \u2013 to mean \u201cconcerns\u201d or \u201cregards\u201d based on the ordinary dictionary definitions of these terms. A \u201cmotor vehicle,\u201d under the FAAAA, is defined as \u201ca vehicle, machine, tractor, trailer, or semitrailer propelled or drawn by mechanical power and used on a highway in transportation.\u201d A claim is therefore \u201cwith respect to motor vehicles\u201d if it concerns the trucks used to move goods, as was the case here, Barrett explained.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=50\">Court denies Virginia\u2019s request to reinstate congressional map that would benefit Democrats<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Barrett also addressed three counterarguments from C.H. Robinson and the federal government. First, the company warned, Barrett\u2019s reading would allow the safety exception to swallow the preemption clause whole \u2013 by siding with Montgomery, everything else that Congress had deemed preempted would now be subject to the safety exception. Barrett disagreed, explaining the safety exception covers only a subset of preempted state laws, specifically those \u201cconcerning motor vehicle safety.\u201d State regulations governing what \u201ca carrier may charge or which highways it may traverse,\u201d she noted, would remain preempted.<\/p>\n<p>Second, C.H. Robinson argued, Barrett\u2019s reading creates surplusage, or redundancy, in the statute. Given that the FAAAA preserves a state\u2019s regulatory authority with respect to both motor vehicles and the imposition of route controls based on the vehicle or cargo, having a specific safety carveout (as sought out by Montgomery) would be unnecessary. Barrett replied that the alleged overlap exists regardless of how the disputed phrase is defined, also noting that \u201cthe provisions can be harmonized: A State\u2019s choice to impose route controls or weight limits may serve ends other than safety.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Third, the company pointed to the structural oddity of a separate FAAAA subsection which fully preempts state regulation of brokers for intrastate shipping but contains no safety exception. Why, they asked, would Congress shield brokers from state oversight for in-state trips but not interstate ones? On this, Barrett noted that while \u201c[i]t is not obvious why Congress included a safety exception\u201d in one subsection but not the other, \u201cit would be even odder to say that the alleged tort\u2014the negligent hiring of an unsafe motor carrier whose truck caused injury\u2014is <em>not<\/em> an exercise of \u2018the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles\u2019\u201d under the relevant provision. That text \u201ccontrols,\u201d Barrett explained. \u201cBetter to live with the mystery than to rewrite the statute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, concurred separately to note that the case was \u201ccloser than the Court\u2019s opinion perhaps might suggest.\u201d Kavanaugh walked through the competing arguments at length, acknowledging that the statute\u2019s insurance provisions and its intrastate preemption clause both cut in the company\u2019s favor. However, he noted, he found the overall architecture of the statute decisive, since Congress in 1994 was pursuing economic deregulation of trucking, not safety deregulation. Kavanaugh also stressed that the ruling should not be understood as opening brokers to routine liability. Brokers that act reasonably and select reputable carriers \u201cshould be able to successfully defend against state tort suits,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=48\">Justices validate authority of federal courts to confirm arbitration awards \u2013 at least in cases already in federal court<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A unanimous Supreme Court on Thursday in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II that federal law\u00a0does not shield freight brokers from state lawsuits claiming they negligently hired dangerous motor carriers. Read more Justice Clarence Thomas reflects on shared values and his \u201cdeeper\u201d friendships on a past court The case began on , when Shawn Montgomery suffered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Court rules freight brokers can face negligent hiring suits under state law - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=54\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court rules freight brokers can face negligent hiring suits under state law - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A unanimous Supreme Court on Thursday in Montgomery v. 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