On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, 608 U.S. ___ (2026), that freight brokers can be held liable under state negligence law for failing to exercise ordinary care when selecting motor carriers. The decision, written by Justice Barrett, resolves a years-long circuit split and fundamentally changes the legal landscape for every freight broker in the United States.
What Happened in Montgomery
Shawn Montgomery lost his leg when a Caribe Transport truck veered off an Illinois highway. C.H. Robinson had brokered the load. At the time of selection, Caribe Transport had a "Conditional" FMCSA safety rating with documented deficiencies in driver qualifications, hours of service compliance, vehicle maintenance, and crash rates — all publicly available on the FMCSA SAFER system.
The broker argued that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) preempted state negligence claims against brokers. For years, some federal circuits agreed. The Supreme Court disagreed — unanimously.
The Legal Standard: Ordinary Care
The Court held that the FAAAA's safety exception preserves state authority over motor vehicle safety. Negligent carrier selection falls squarely within that exception. The standard is "ordinary care" — the same standard applied to any business making safety-critical decisions.
In plain English: did the broker act reasonably when choosing this carrier? Did they check the data that was freely available? Did they have a process?
What Courts Will Look For
Post-Montgomery, when a broker is sued after an accident, discovery will focus on:
What data did the broker review? FMCSA makes carrier safety data freely available — operating authority, insurance status, safety ratings, inspection history, crash records, out-of-service rates, and SMS BASIC scores. A broker who didn't check any of this has a weak defense.
Did the broker have a documented process? A consistent, written carrier qualification policy applied to every load is far stronger than ad hoc phone calls. The key word is "contemporaneous" — the documentation must exist at the time of selection, not after an incident.
Were there red flags? A Conditional or Unsatisfactory safety rating, elevated BASIC scores, high out-of-service rates, recent fatal crashes, or new authority with no inspection history are all flags a reasonable broker should catch.
Did the broker act on those flags? Seeing a red flag and dispatching anyway without documented justification is worse than not looking at all.
5 Steps Every Broker Should Take Now
1. Implement a documented carrier screening process. Every carrier, every load. Check operating authority, insurance, safety rating, BASIC indicators, crash history, OOS rates, and authority age. Document what you checked and when.
2. Create a written carrier qualification policy. Define objective thresholds — for example: no carriers with Unsatisfactory ratings, no carriers with fatal crashes in 24 months, flag carriers with OOS rates above the national average. Apply the policy consistently.
3. Require carrier safety attestations. The broker can verify public FMCSA data, but only the carrier knows whether the specific driver assigned to this load is qualified, whether the pre-trip inspection was done, and whether their drug testing program is current. A signed attestation creates the documentary record that you asked and the carrier represented.
4. Maintain a Do Not Use list. When you have a bad experience or identify a carrier that doesn't meet your standards, document the reason and exclude them. Tendering to a carrier on your own exclusion list is hard to justify — most policies require removing it from the list, with a documented reason, before reconsidering.
5. Retain records for at least 3-5 years. Statute of limitations for personal injury varies by state. Some states allow longer periods under discovery rules. Keep every screening record, attestation, and selection decision.
The Bottom Line
Montgomery doesn't create a new duty — it confirms that the duty exists and that brokers can't hide behind federal preemption. Brokers who already take carrier vetting seriously are in good shape. Brokers who don't have a documented process need to build one immediately.
The standard is "ordinary care" — not perfection. You don't need to guarantee every carrier is safe. You need to show you did the work a reasonable broker would do with the data that's freely available.
Automate your carrier vetting
DOTScreener runs every check in this article automatically — live FMCSA data, documented decisions, tamper-evident audit trail.
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