Can a freight broker be sued for hiring an unsafe carrier? What the 2026 Supreme Court ruling says

Much of the freight on American highways is not arranged by the trucking company that hauls it. A shipper hires a freight broker, and the broker picks a motor carrier. When that carrier’s truck causes a crash, the question is whether the broker that chose it can be held responsible. On May 14, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States answered a large part of that question in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, 608 U.S. 219 (2026).

What a broker is

Federal rules define a broker as a person who, for compensation, arranges or offers to arrange the transportation of property by an authorized motor carrier (49 CFR 371.2). A carrier arranging loads it has agreed to haul itself is not a broker. The opinion in Montgomery calls brokers the transportation industry’s matchmakers, and cites federal figures that roughly 28,000 brokers arrange transportation for about a third of all freight shipped in the United States.

The case

Shawn Montgomery was severely and permanently injured when the tractor-trailer he was driving was struck by a truck hauling a load for Caribe Transport II, a motor carrier. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, a broker, had arranged the shipment. Montgomery claimed the broker was liable because it negligently hired the carrier: Caribe Transport had a conditional safety rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which had allegedly found it deficient in areas including driver qualification, hours of service, and inspection, repair and maintenance.

The broker argued that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which preempts state laws related to the prices, routes and services of the trucking industry (49 U.S.C. 14501(c)(1)), barred the claim. The trial court and the Seventh Circuit agreed. Other federal circuits had ruled the other way.

What the Court held

In an opinion by Justice Barrett for a unanimous Court, the Court held that a claim that one company negligently hired another to transport goods is not preempted. The Act has a safety exception: its preemption provision shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles (49 U.S.C. 14501(c)(2)(A)). Common-law duties of care are part of a State’s safety authority, and requiring a broker to use ordinary care in selecting a carrier concerns motor vehicles, most obviously the trucks that will carry the goods. So the claim falls within the exception, and the case went back to the lower courts.

The limits the opinions point out

• Intrastate loads. A separate part of the Act, 49 U.S.C. 14501(b), preempts state regulation of the intrastate rates, routes or services of brokers and has no safety exception. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence, joined by Justice Alito, notes that all parties agreed the Act does not permit state tort suits against brokers for arranging intrastate transportation. A load that stays inside Texas may therefore be treated differently from one that crosses state lines.
• A claim, not a result. The ruling lets the claim proceed. The injured person must still prove that the broker failed to use reasonable care in choosing the carrier and that the failure caused the harm. The concurrence observes that brokers that act reasonably and hire reputable carriers should be able to defend these suits.

Why the safety record matters

The claim in Montgomery rested on what the broker could have known from the carrier’s federal safety rating. That points to the evidence in these cases: what the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s records showed about the carrier on the day the load was given out, what the broker’s own carrier screening asked and found, and whether the carrier’s problems were of the kind that cause crashes, such as unqualified drivers, hours of service violations or poor maintenance. A broker that never checked, or checked and ignored what it saw, stands in a very different place from one that chose a carrier with a clean record.

What we look at after a crash

After a truck crash in or around San Antonio, we find out whether a broker arranged the load, whether the load crossed state lines, and what the broker knew or could have learned about the carrier when it gave it the load: the carrier’s federal safety rating and inspection history, its insurance, its operating authority and the broker’s own carrier selection practices. The bill of lading and the broker-carrier agreement usually name the broker, and the preservation letter asks for both.

A broker can matter for practical reasons too. When a carrier’s insurance is limited to the federal minimum, a broker with its own coverage may be one of the few other sources of recovery for a seriously injured person. For every other party that can be responsible, see our truck accident attorney San Antonio page, and for how a case starts, our truck accident lawyer San Antonio page.