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Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, is a case more than a decade in the making. When the Supreme Court granted certiorari, it accepted review of a question that has evenly divided the federal courts of appeals: whether a state common-law negligent-selection claim against a freight broker is preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA), 49 U.S.C. §14501(c)(1), or saved by the statute’s safety exception in § 14501(c)(2)(A).
The question presented, whether negligent-selection claims against brokers may proceed under state law or are precluded at the threshold by federal law, frames a fundamental tension between maintaining a uniform federal regulatory system and allowing varying state tort standards to apply to broker conduct.
On May 14, 2026, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, reversed the 7th Circuit and issued its decision holding the FAAAA does not preempt state negligent hiring claims against brokers. This means that states can apply their safety-based common law duties to brokers who select unsafe motor carriers whose trucks cause injury. The decision was unanimous.
A. Background and Legislative History
The FAAAA was enacted in 1994 to extend to motor carriers and brokers the deregulatory regime Congress had earlier established for airlines in the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (ADA). Section 14501(c)(1) provides that a state “may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier… broker, or freight forwarder with respect to the transportation of property.” 49 U.S.C. §14501(c)(1). Lower courts have generally concluded that negligent-selection claims fall within § 14501(c)(1)’s preemptive scope, but there is a split among the circuit courts as to whether they then escape preemption through the safety exception.
Section 14501(c)(2)(A) provides that the preemption clause “shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.” The interpretive question in Montgomery is whether Congress intended for the phrase “with respect to motor vehicles” to cover state laws aimed at motor vehicles and motor vehicle safety, including intermediaries who place those vehicles on the road, or whether it instead intended to cover state laws aimed at motor vehicle carriers.
The plaintiff’s textual argument is that the phrase “with respect to motor vehicles” is broader than the defense’s proposed “direct control” rule. Plaintiffs contend that Congress did not preserve only state authority over laws directed at those who own or operate vehicles; rather, it preserved state safety authority “with respect to motor vehicles,” a phrase that can reasonably extend to state tort rules designed to prevent unsafe commercial vehicles from reaching the road in the first place. Framed this way, the plaintiff’s position does not depend on treating brokers as carriers. Instead, it rests on the view that a negligent selection claim constitutes safety regulation because it addresses who is entrusted to operate the vehicle and whether that vehicle, through an unsafe carrier, should have been in service at all.
From the defense perspective, the safety exception preserves state authority over the operation and regulation of motor vehicles themselves, not over brokers’ upstream economic choices. “With respect to motor vehicles” targets laws governing the ownership, maintenance, and on-the-road use of trucks and the entities that actually operate them. Expanding the exception to reach negligent selection claims against brokers would erase the distinction Congress drew between carriers and brokers, dilute the clause’s limiting function, and allow States to re-regulate broker “services” under the guise of safety.
B. Montgomery Oral Argument on the Search for a Limiting Principle in Plaintiff Arguments
For plaintiff’s counsel, the oral argument suggested openness to the view that the safety exception preserves traditional state tort authority unless Congress clearly and specifically provides otherwise, and that the defense’s limiting principle may be underinclusive in ways some Justices could find difficult to accept.
Status Quo and Traditional Tort Authority
Justice Jackson framed § 14501(c)(1) as changing the status quo only for economic regulation, with the safety clause confirming that Congress did not disturb existing state safety law, including tort, absent a clear directive. The plaintiff tied that to ADA precedent recognizing that economic deregulation did not silently erase personal-injury remedies.
This exchange reframes the interpretive baseline. Ratherthan asking why Congress preserved broker negligence suits, the better question becomes why Congress would have displaced traditional state safety authority over unsafe selection decisions without expressing that intent more clearly.
If States historically used negligence to regulate roadway safety, including negligent hiring claims against brokers, then the plaintiff’s position is that Congress left that framework intact when it targeted economics, not safety. That framing also undercuts the “expansion of liability” objection by recasting these claims as preserved state safety doctrines, not new federal inventions.
The Shipper/Broker Anomaly
The plaintiff also advanced an anomaly argument. Under the defense’s theory, a shipper may in some circumstances remain subject to state law negligent selection principles, while the broker that actually arranged the transportation would be categorically immune. The plaintiff described that result as difficult to reconcile with ordinary tort principles, particularly where the broker sits between two actors that state law may treat as potentially responsible for unsafe entrustment. That point may resonate with Justices concerned that the defense’s rule does not merely narrow liability, but instead creates an artificial immunity for a class of actors whose business is arranging motor-carrier transportation.
What if a Carrier Is Known to Be Dangerous?
The plaintiff emphasized the issue of the “known dangerous” carrier. Under the defense’s reading, a broker that allegedly knows a carrier is manifestly unsafe, underinsured, or a “chameleon carrier” could still be insulated from liability if both federal law and state tort law are interpreted to exclude broker responsibility. Justice Sotomayor’s questions to the government emphasized this accountability gap, asking whether such a broker would face no consequences even when the carrier’s safety history is egregious and well documented. The government’s focus on carrier liability allowed the plaintiff to argue that the defense’s interpretation removes any meaningful incentive for brokers to avoid plainly dangerous carriers and leaves a critical safety actor unchecked.
Plaintiff Is Not Asking for Boundless Regulation
Finally, the plaintiff stressed that traditional negligence concepts supply the limiting principle. Liability depends on established elements: the broker must have known or should have known of the danger, and proximate cause must link the selection decision to the collision; remote or “butterfly-effect” connections would not qualify. Selecting the carrier whose truck is actually involved in the crash, plaintiff argued, is neither peripheral nor attenuated. That framing offers a middle ground for Justices wary of both categorical broker immunity and open-ended state regulation, by rooting the safety exception in familiar, cabined tort doctrine rather than in unbounded regulatory discretion.
C. Montgomery Oral Argument on the Search for a Limiting Principle in Defense Arguments
For defense counsel, the oral argument illustrated the importance of framing the issue as one of statutory limits rather than policy-driven, case-specific outcomes.
What is the Limiting Principle and Where Does it Stop?
Chief Justice Roberts pressed for a limiting principle that would prevent liability from expanding beyond brokers to shippers and other intermediaries, echoing defense concerns that the plaintiff’s reading risks a cascading, commerce-chilling expansion of ort exposure. Defense and amici argued that Congress sought to avoid exactly that kind of re-regulation by deregulating transportation markets. Justice Barrett’s questions likewise focused on finding a clear stopping point, and defense counsel offered one: the safety exception should be confined to “laws directed at motor vehicles and their operation,” covering entities that operate, maintain, or control vehicles, but not intermediaries that merely arrange transportation. That rule, they argued, would promote predictability and uniform application and should apply even in difficult cases where a broker has actual knowledge of a carrier’s poor safety record. Carving out fact-specific exceptions, they contend, would erode uniformity and reintroduce the very state-by-state variability Congress sought to eliminate.
The Interstate/Intrastate Anomaly
Justice Kavanaugh addressed the potential tension between interstate and intrastate trucking, questioning why Congress would intend for states to have more control over interstate trucking than over trucking conducted exclusively within their own borders. He also noted that Congress imposed financial requirements on motor carriers, but not on brokers, which suggests an intent to treat carriers and brokers as structurally distinct. Treating the two the same under the safety exception would risk undermining those structural differences.
The “Direct Link” Analysis
Justice Gorsuch’s questioning highlighted two potential approaches to the safety exception: whether it turns on who is being regulated or on what conduct is being regulated. The answer to that question largely determines the outcome of the case. Under a party-focused analysis, brokers acting as intermediaries do not directly operate or control motor vehicles and merely arranging transportation is too attenuated from motor vehicles themselves to fall within the safety exception. Under a conduct-focused analysis, however, the selection of carriers affects which vehicles are on the road and who is driving them. Placing dangerous vehicles or drivers on the road directly implicates motor vehicle safety. Under that approach, brokers may fall within the safety exception.
D. Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court held that even assuming the FAAAA’s general preemption provision would otherwise apply, the negligent-hiring claim was saved by the statute’s safety exception. The Court reasoned that common-law duties and standards of care are part of a State’s authority to regulate safety, and negligent-hiring claims impose a duty of reasonable care when selecting a contractor for work involving a risk of physical harm.
The key interpretive dispute concerned the phrase “with respect to motor vehicles” in 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(2)(A). Because the FAAAA does not define the phrase “with respect to,” the Court gave it its ordinary meaning “concerning,” “regarding,” or “referring to” and concluded that a claim is “with respect to motor vehicles” if it concerns vehicles used in transportation.
Applying that reading, the Court found it straightforward that a negligent-hiring claim against a broker for selecting an allegedly unsafe motor carrier concerns motor vehicles, “most obviously, the trucks that will transport the goods.” Because the claim concerned the trucks used in transportation and sought to enforce a state-law duty of reasonable care tied to highway safety, it fell within the safety exception and was not preempted.
The Court rejected the broker’s argument that this interpretation would swallow the FAAAA’s preemption clause. The safety exception preserves only a subset of otherwise preempted laws, thoseinvolving regulations concerning motor vehicle safety, while non-safety-relatedstate laws touching broker prices, routes, or services remain preempted.
The Court also rejected arguments basedon statutory surplusage and on the anomaly created by § 14501(b), whichpreempts certain intrastate broker regulation without including a comparablesafety exception. Although the Court acknowledged that the statutory structureis not perfectly tidy, it concluded that the text of § 14501(c)(2)(A) controlsand that it would be stranger to say the negligent hiring of an unsafe motorcarrier whose truck caused injury is not an exercise of state safety authoritywith respect to motor vehicles.
E. Implications for Brokers
Plaintiffswill cite Montgomery to keep brokers in serious truck-accidentcases where the record suggests the broker knew or should have known that theselected carrier presented meaningful safety risks. Broker liability willnow turn more often on ordinary negligence principles: what the broker knew,what it should have reviewed, what red flags were present, and whether thecarrier selection process was reasonable under the circumstances.
As a result,brokers should revisit carrier-vetting procedures and documentation practices.At a minimum, brokers should consider consistently documenting FMCSA authority,safety ratings, insurance, out-of-service data, inspection history, crashhistory, and any internal escalation of red-flag information. Those practiceswill matter not only for safety, but for defending the reasonableness of theselection decision once preemption is no longer the threshold barrier it oncewas.
Montgomery alsocarries insurance and business-operations consequences. Brokers can expectcontinued pressure from insurers, more scrutiny of contingent anderrors-and-omissions coverage, and stronger incentives to avoid carriers withweak safety records, sparse compliance histories, or unstable operatingprofiles.
F. Implications for Motor Carriers
Although Montgomery isstrictly addressing broker liability, motor carriers are directly affected.Carrier safety performance will now be even more central to litigation becauseplaintiffs will use the carrier’s safety data not only to pursue claims againstthe carrier itself, but also to argue that the broker should never haveselected that carrier in the first place.
Carrierswith conditional ratings, significant inspection problems, poor maintenancerecords, driver qualification issues, hours-of-service violations, or elevatedcrash metrics may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage in the freightmarketplace. Brokers facing post-Montgomery exposure have strongerincentives to favor carriers with cleaner records and better-documented safetyprograms.
For motorcarriers, the practical takeaway is that safety performance is now even morecommercially important. A poor safety profile may affect not only directliability exposure after a crash, but also access to brokered freight,contractual opportunities, insurance costs, and relationships with nationalbrokerage houses.
G. Implications for Defense Counsel
For defensecounsel, Montgomery changes the opening move, not the entiregame. With preemption no longer the “go to” escape hatch in interstatenegligent‑selection cases, the litigation battleground shifts squarely to themerits: duty, breach, and causation. It will be important to note whatinformation was reasonably available to the broker and whether the carrier’salleged safety deficiencies bear a sufficiently direct and foreseeableconnection to the crash at issue.
