The Supreme Court Just Changed the Carrier-Vetting Conversation for Freight Brokers

DOT broker authority is an FMCSA registration that allows a broker to arrange interstate transportation for compensation; a USDOT number by itself is not broker authority. Obtaining that authority requires filing application paperwork with FMCSA and submitting a BOC-3 designation of process agents. But for freight brokers and brokerage teams responsible for carrier selection, compliance, and risk management, checking authority alone is no longer enough. On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision that brokers and brokerage operations involved in selecting and vetting motor carriers should be paying close attention to. Brokers also must maintain $75,000 in surety-bond or trust-fund financial security, and FMCSA can suspend operating authority if that requirement is not maintained. Brokers do not need the same carrier insurance required of trucking companies. They do need proper public liability records on file with FMCSA.

In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, the Court considered whether federal law prevented an injured driver from pursuing a state-law negligent-hiring claim against freight broker C.H. Robinson based on the motor carrier it selected to move a load.

The Supreme Court held that it did not.

The Court ruled that this type of negligent-hiring claim falls within the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act’s motor-vehicle-safety exception and therefore is not preempted by the FAAAA. The Seventh Circuit’s judgment was reversed, and the case was sent back for further proceedings.

That does not mean the Supreme Court found C.H. Robinson negligent.

It did not decide that C.H. Robinson owed damages. It did not establish a universal carrier-vetting checklist. And it did not rule that freight brokers automatically become responsible every time one of their carriers is involved in an accident.

But it did change an important part of the conversation.

For freight brokers, the question can no longer stop at:

“Was this carrier authorized to operate?”

A much more uncomfortable question may follow:

“Why did you choose this carrier, and what did you know about it when you did?”

That is a question every brokerage should be prepared to answer. The discussion below explains what DOT broker authority includes, how the ruling affects broker liability, where carrier vetting, related legal obligations, safety reviews, and ongoing carrier monitoring fit into the process, and how Focused Compliance Group supports documented broker compliance processes that help reduce negligent-selection risk and strengthen legal defense.

What Happened in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport?

C.H. Robinson coordinated a shipment that was ultimately transported by Caribe Transport II.

While moving the load through Illinois, a Caribe Transport truck struck a tractor-trailer belonging to Shawn Montgomery, who was stopped along the roadway. Montgomery suffered severe and permanent injuries.

He later sued several parties, including C.H. Robinson, alleging that the broker had negligently selected Caribe Transport.

According to the allegations described in the Supreme Court’s opinion, Caribe Transport had a “conditional” FMCSA safety rating when C.H. Robinson selected the carrier.

The complaint also alleged deficiencies involving areas including:

• Driver qualification
• Hours of Service
• Inspection, repair and maintenance
• Recordable crash rate
• Other safety-related concerns

Montgomery argued that C.H. Robinson knew or should have known from the carrier’s safety record that selecting the company created an unreasonable risk. Those remain allegations; the Supreme Court did not decide whether they were ultimately proven.

The legal fight before the Supreme Court was instead about preemption.

The FAAAA broadly limits state regulation related to the prices, routes and services of motor carriers and brokers. But Congress included a safety exception preserving state authority over safety “with respect to motor vehicles.”

The Supreme Court concluded that requiring a broker to exercise ordinary care when selecting the carrier that will operate the truck concerns motor-vehicle safety. Therefore, the negligent-hiring claim fell within that exception.

That distinction matters.

The Court did not tell brokers exactly how to vet a carrier.

It did, however, make clear that federal preemption does not categorically prevent this kind of negligent-selection claim from moving forward.

Why This Decision Matters to Freight Brokers

For years, a major legal issue surrounding broker negligent-selection lawsuits was whether the FAAAA prevented the claim from being brought in the first place.

The federal appellate courts had split over that question. The Supreme Court took Montgomery to resolve that disagreement and held that the safety exception applies to this type of claim.

For brokerage operations, that moves more attention toward a different set of questions:

What did the brokerage actually do when selecting the carrier?

If a serious accident occurs, questions may include:

• What information did the brokerage review before approving the carrier?
• What safety information was publicly available?
• Were there warning signs?
• Did anyone investigate those warning signs?
• What standards did the brokerage use when making its decision?
• Was the decision documented?
• Was the carrier reviewed again after onboarding?
• Did the brokerage become aware of new safety information later?
• If so, what was done about it?

Those are not presented here as a Supreme Court-mandated checklist. The Court did not create one.

They are practical questions that become increasingly important when a broker may have to explain why a particular motor carrier was selected.

There is a big difference between saying:

“Our system showed them as approved.”

and being able to show why they were approved.

Active Authority Is Important. It Is Not a Complete Carrier Risk Review.

Every brokerage needs to confirm basic carrier credentials.

FMCSA provides its Licensing & Insurance system for checking operating-authority status, including whether a carrier’s authority is currently active.

That is important.

But authority answers a specific question:

Is this carrier authorized to perform the transportation for which it is being considered?

It does not necessarily answer:

What does the available information tell us about this carrier’s safety history?

FMCSA’s SAFER Company Snapshot provides additional public information, including a carrier’s identification information, size, cargo, inspection and out-of-service summaries, crash data and safety rating, when a rating exists.

Those are different categories of information serving different purposes.

And safety ratings deserve particular attention.

FMCSA explains that a motor carrier may receive a Satisfactory, Conditional or Unsatisfactory safety rating after a rated investigation. Not every carrier has undergone an investigation resulting in a safety rating, which means the absence of a rating should not automatically be interpreted as either positive or negative.

That nuance is important.

A good carrier-vetting process should not reduce safety decisions to a single green or red indicator.

It should evaluate the information that is actually available and determine whether anything deserves a closer look.

Carrier vetting requires judgment.

Imagine two carriers.

Both have active authority.

Both have the required insurance information.

Both can legally accept the load.

One has a relatively uneventful safety history.

The other has information in its available record that raises questions.

If the brokerage treats both carriers exactly the same simply because both display “active,” it may be missing the entire purpose of risk-based carrier vetting.

Active authority should be part of the process—not the entire process.

The Supreme Court Did Not Say Brokers Need to Panic

This part of the decision deserves just as much attention as the headline.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, wrote separately to address some of the real-world consequences of the ruling.

His concurrence recognized that brokers generally do not own the trucks, employ the drivers or directly manage a motor carrier’s safety program. He also acknowledged that brokers may not always be in a strong position to independently determine the relative safety of different trucking companies.

Most importantly, he cautioned against assuming that the Court’s ruling means brokers will routinely become liable whenever a truck accident occurs.

The concurrence pointed to the argument that brokers who exercise reasonable care and arrange transportation with reputable trucking companies should be able to successfully defend themselves. It also discussed the importance of asking meaningful questions rather than simply ignoring information indicating that a carrier may present a safety problem.

That is an important distinction for the freight industry.

The lesson from Montgomery should not be:

“Never trust another motor carrier.”

It should be:

“Have a process for deciding which motor carriers you trust.”

Carrier Vetting Should Answer More Than “Can We Use Them?”

Most carrier-onboarding systems are designed around one immediate operational goal:

Can we put this carrier under a load?

That question matters.

But a stronger risk-management process asks additional questions.

1. Who is the carrier?

Confirm that the company being reviewed is actually the company your brokerage believes it is dealing with.

Carrier identity, USDOT information, authority, company name, and other records should be reviewed carefully enough to support verifying the carrier, including looking for recent name changes or mismatched information that deserves additional investigation.

2. Is the carrier currently authorized?

Operating authority should be verified through appropriate FMCSA resources.

3. What safety information is available?

Review the information reasonably available regarding the carrier’s safety history, including safety scores.

That does not mean looking at a single number and automatically approving or rejecting the carrier.

It means understanding what the available information says and whether anything requires further attention.

4. Are there warning signs?

Some information may simply warrant another question.

Warning signs can include rates that seem far below the market.

Warning signs can also include safety or compliance violations that suggest the carrier deserves closer review.

Other information may justify escalation to someone with greater compliance knowledge.

The goal is not to find an excuse to reject every carrier.

The goal is to recognize when “approved” should not be an automatic decision.

5. Can the brokerage show what it reviewed?

If carrier approval happened through a few browser tabs, a phone conversation and someone’s memory, reconstructing that decision two years later may be difficult.

A repeatable carrier-vetting process should create a record. Brokers should retain transaction data and related vetting documentation in an organized way for tracking, auditability, and compliance review across the applicable three-to-five-year period.

What Would Your Carrier File Look Like After a Serious Accident?

This may be the most important question in this entire discussion.

Imagine one of your carriers is involved in a catastrophic accident tomorrow.

Months later, the brokerage is asked to produce information about the carrier-selection process.

What does the file show?

Complete documentation helps show the brokerage followed its own rules and applied them consistently.

Does it show:

Carrier approved.

Or does it show:

• When the carrier was reviewed
• What information was checked
• What information was available at the time
• Whether concerns were identified
• Whether those concerns were investigated
• What follow-up occurred
• Why the carrier ultimately remained acceptable under the brokerage’s policies

Documentation does not guarantee that a brokerage will avoid litigation.

It does not guarantee a favorable outcome.

But there is an obvious practical difference between having an established process and trying to reconstruct one after the fact.

If your company has a carrier-vetting policy, your records should be able to demonstrate that the policy is actually being used.

The Carrier You Approved Last Year Is Not Necessarily the Carrier You Have Today

There is another weakness in many carrier-vetting systems:

They happen once.

Carrier submits packet.

Carrier passes onboarding.

Carrier enters the system.

Carrier remains approved.

Indefinitely.

But transportation companies change.

Over time:

• Inspection history develops
• Out-of-service information can change
• Crashes may occur
• Authority status can change
• Insurance information can change
• A carrier may receive a safety rating
• Existing safety concerns may become more significant
• New information may appear that was not available during initial onboarding

FMCSA itself describes SAFER as a source of carrier safety and credential information, while the underlying public safety information can be updated over time.

That makes carrier vetting fundamentally different from collecting a W-9.

A W-9 goes in the file.

Risk changes.

A serious carrier-vetting strategy therefore needs to consider both:

Pre-qualification

What do we know about this carrier before we begin assigning freight?

and:

Continued review

What has changed since we approved them?

The exact frequency and scope of re-vetting should be determined by each brokerage with its legal counsel, insurers and internal risk-management team.

Continued review helps reduce liability exposure when a carrier’s safety, insurance, or authority profile changes.

Continued review should also account for regulatory changes that affect carrier status, insurance, or public safety information.

But the underlying question is simple:

If the information changes, does your approval process notice?

Better Vetting Does Not Mean Eliminating Small Carriers

One of the worst outcomes from the current liability conversation would be the assumption that a brokerage can solve the problem simply by eliminating small trucking companies.

Fleet size is not a substitute for carrier evaluation.

There are small carriers with strong safety cultures, experienced drivers and well-managed operations.

There are larger carriers with problems.

Automatically refusing to work with smaller fleets could reduce capacity while doing very little to answer the actual question:

Did we evaluate this carrier reasonably?

A strong vetting process can actually help a brokerage remain open to quality small and mid-sized carriers.

Instead of making decisions based on company size or name recognition, the brokerage can look at the individual operation in front of it.

That is better for the brokerage.

It is better for responsible carriers.

And it creates a healthier carrier network.

The Operational Problem: Who Is Supposed to Do All of This?

This is where the legal discussion collides with reality.

A brokerage can decide tomorrow:

“We’re going to vet every carrier more thoroughly.”

Great.

Who is doing it?

Carrier sales?

Operations?

Management?

Someone has to review the information.

Someone has to understand what it means.

Someone has to recognize when something deserves escalation.

Someone has to document the review.

Someone has to revisit existing carriers.

That requires ongoing oversight, not just one-time onboarding.

And all of that is happening while the brokerage is trying to quote customers, find trucks, recover loads, solve service problems and move freight.

Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence specifically recognized that more substantial carrier inquiries can impose real costs on brokers.

That problem is not theoretical.

The cost of weak vetting can include litigation expense, disrupted operations, and fines up to tens of thousands for compliance failures.

Proper due diligence requires time and knowledge.

But your brokerage employees were hired to run a brokerage—not to become DOT compliance investigators.

Where Focused Compliance Group Fits

That is the opportunity for a different kind of partnership.

Focused Compliance Group can serve as a DOT compliance resource behind your brokerage’s carrier-vetting process, helping build vetting procedures aligned with applicable regulations and regulatory requirements to avoid compliance violations and regulatory penalties.

Your carrier department does not have to become a compliance department.

FCG can help develop a process around carrier evaluation that fits the needs, size and risk tolerance of the brokerage.

Depending on the scope of the partnership, that can include support with:

Pre-Carrier Review

Reviewing available carrier compliance and safety information before the carrier begins working with the brokerage supports carrier selection as a business decision, not just a paperwork step.

Documented Carrier Evaluations

Creating a consistent record showing what information was reviewed at the time of evaluation, and retaining those documents long enough to show what did matter at the time of review if the decision is later questioned.

Risk Flagging

Identifying information that deserves additional consideration rather than treating every carrier as a simple yes/no approval.

Escalation

Helping distinguish routine carrier approvals from situations that deserve management review or additional investigation when they raise legal, insurance, or regulatory concerns.

Periodic Carrier Re-Vetting

Reviewing existing carriers so that approval is not permanently based on information collected months or years earlier.

Compliance Interpretation of Regulatory Requirements

Software can display information.

Experienced compliance support can also help brokerages understand which issues are more likely to draw attention from state regulators.

A compliance professional can help your team understand what that information actually means. This is especially important because most brokers are not trained to interpret every safety or compliance signal on their own.

That distinction matters.

FCG is not proposing to replace your carrier representatives.

We are proposing to give them another layer of support.

Your team moves the freight. We help you know who’s moving it.

What FCG Is Not Promising

No responsible compliance company should promise that a vetting program can determine with absolute certainty whether a carrier will ever have an accident.

Weak vetting can also expose shippers and brokers to carrier fraud, a problem that costs the industry millions each year.

It cannot.

FCG cannot guarantee that:

• A carrier will never be involved in an accident
• A driver will never violate a safety regulation
• A brokerage will never face a negligent-selection lawsuit
• A court will find that a brokerage acted reasonably
• Any particular carrier is permanently “safe”

And Montgomery did not create a specific federal carrier-selection checklist that guarantees protection from liability.

What a brokerage can do is build a better process.

A process that evaluates information.

A process that recognizes concerns.

A process that documents decisions.

A process that does not forget about the carrier the moment onboarding is finished.

And a process that can be explained later if somebody asks:

“Why did you trust this company with your customer’s freight?”

The Post-Montgomery Question Every Brokerage Should Be Asking

The Supreme Court’s decision does not mean freight brokers should stop moving freight.

It means the carrier-selection conversation deserves to mature.

After Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, simply assuming that negligent-selection claims will disappear behind federal preemption is no longer a sound basis for a risk-management strategy. The Supreme Court has held that this type of motor-vehicle-safety claim can proceed under the FAAAA’s safety exception.

So ask yourself:

If we had to defend one of our carrier selections tomorrow, could we show how that decision was made?

Not just that the carrier had authority.

Not just that the insurance certificate was received.

Not just that somebody clicked “approve.”

Could you show that your company had a real process?

If the answer is uncertain, that does not mean you need another software subscription.

It may mean you need a compliance partner whose defensible process reflects applicable laws and documented internal policies.

Build the Process Before You Need to Explain It

Focused Compliance Group works in the DOT compliance environment every day.

FCG helps brokerages adjust their procedures as federal regulations and state laws change.

Your brokerage specializes in moving freight.

Those two areas can work together.

FCG can help your team develop a carrier-vetting and ongoing review program built around the realities of your brokerage rather than trying to force every operation through the same generic system.

Clear procedures can help lead consistent reporting and recordkeeping across the brokerage.

You move the freight. We’ll help you know who’s moving it.

Talk with Focused Compliance Group about building a carrier-vetting and monitoring program for your brokerage.

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This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Freight brokers should consult qualified legal counsel, insurance professionals and other appropriate advisors regarding their specific carrier-selection procedures, legal obligations and risk-management practices.