The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that freight brokers can be sued for negligently hiring unsafe trucking companies, which could reshape liability across the trucking industry and affect how freight moves through Alabama.
In a unanimous 9-0 decision, the court ruled federal law does not prevent certain state-level negligence claims against freight brokers tied to truck safety. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion.
Freight brokers act as middlemen between companies shipping goods and the trucking companies hauling those loads. The case centered on whether brokers can be held responsible if they hire carriers with known safety issues.
The lawsuit stemmed from a crash in Illinois in which a truck driver lost his leg after another commercial truck veered off course. According to court filings, the injured driver alleged freight broker C.H. Robinson negligently hired the carrier involved in the crash despite safety concerns.
The Supreme Court ruled that states retain authority to enforce safety-related claims involving motor vehicles, allowing the lawsuit to move forward.
Alabama Trucking Association President and CEO Mark Colson said this week’s ruling reinforces the idea that all parts of the freight industry share responsibility for highway safety while also raising concerns about how the decision could be used in future lawsuits.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe II Transport is a necessary step of acknowledgment that everyone in the supply chain has a responsibility for the safety of American highways,” Colson said. “It also complements the work of the Trucking Association Executives Council’s Trucking Resurgence action plan that is focused on rooting out the bad actors in the supply chain.
“The trucking industry spends more than $14 billion annually on creating a safety culture through investments in training and safety technologies, and we need all supply chain partners (brokers, shippers, freight forwarders, 3PLs insurers etc.) to make this type of commitment.
“While there will certainly be plaintiffs’ attorneys that weaponize this ruling for their own profit, hopefully one of the outcomes of this ruling will be a more thoughtful conversation about real solutions that save lives on our roads. At the same time, the good actor trucking companies need relief from the frivolous lawsuits targeted at them that have little to do with safety or justice and more to do with lining billboard attorneys’ pockets.
“We remain committed to fighting this battle in Alabama,” Colson said.
Barrett wrote in the opinion that requiring a broker “to exercise ordinary care in selecting a carrier concerns motor vehicles,” referring to the trucks transporting freight.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Samuel Alito in a concurring opinion, said the decision could encourage brokers to place greater emphasis on carrier safety. Quoting a brief filed by Ohio, 28 other states and the District of Columbia, Kavanaugh wrote that if brokers can be held liable for disregarding poor safety records, “they have a strong incentive to do business only with safe and reliable motor carriers.”
Transportation industry publication FreightWaves described the ruling as a major shift for the freight brokerage industry, reporting that brokers may now face greater scrutiny over how they select trucking companies for shipments.
The publication reported the decision could lead brokers to more carefully review publicly available safety records, crash histories, inspection data, and federal safety ratings before assigning shipments to carriers.
The ruling does not automatically make brokers liable in crashes but allows lawsuits to proceed when plaintiffs allege brokers failed to use reasonable care in selecting carriers.
The ruling could carry particular significance in Alabama, where trucking and freight transportation play a major role in the state’s economy. Major interstate corridors including Interstate 65, Interstate 20 and Interstate 10 carry thousands of commercial trucks through the state each day, while the Port of Mobile and North Alabama’s growing logistics industry continue to expand freight activity.
Sherri Blevins is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You may contact her at [email protected].
