July 31, 2026
For more than three decades, the freight brokerage industry operated under a powerful legal assumption: if a motor carrier you hired was involved in a catastrophic highway accident, federal law shielded your brokerage from being sued for negligent selection. Under the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA or F4A), state-level laws “related to a price, route, or service” of a broker were preempted. For years, brokers successfully used this defense to dismiss personal injury lawsuits at the earliest stages of litigation. That shield is officially gone. On May 14, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a unanimous 9-0 decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC. Written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the landmark ruling established that state-law negligent hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by the F4A. The Court concluded that negligent selection claims fall squarely within the F4A’s “safety exception,” which […]
