When a semi crosses the center line on I-94, you can predict the cast of the lawsuit that follows. The driver, who is often judgment-proof. The motor carrier, often a small LLC carrying the federal minimum in insurance. And standing just offstage, the freight broker that arranged the load.
For roughly fifteen years, brokers had a powerful answer to being named: federal preemption. On May 14, 2026, a unanimous Supreme Court took that answer away.
No state should pay closer attention to this one than Minnesota.
The statute
Deregulation-era federal law bars states from regulating the economics of trucking. 49 U.S.C. § 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.”
Brokers argued — and won a lot in the lower courts — that a state tort claim for negligently selecting a carrier is a law “related to” broker services. Picking who hauls the load is, after all, the whole service a broker sells.
But the same statute has an exception. § 14501(c)(2)(A) says the preemption provision “shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.”
The circuits split on whether a common-law negligence claim brought by a private plaintiff counts as an exercise of a State’s “safety regulatory authority.”
What the Court held
Justice Barrett, writing for a unanimous Court, held that a claim that a freight broker negligently hired a motor carrier to transport goods is not preempted by the FAAAA, because under the statute States keep their authority to regulate safety with respect to motor vehicles. Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurrence, joined by Justice Alito.
What that means on the ground is simple. The broker is now a defendant on the merits instead of a defendant with a preemption motion that ends the case. Whether it used reasonable care in picking the carrier becomes a merits question about what the broker knew, what it checked, and what it ignored.
Why is this a Minnesota story?
Start with the caption. The broker whose carrier-selection conduct was at issue in Montgomery is C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota — a respondent in the case, along with the motor carrier and the driver.
The underlying facts, as alleged: a driver hauling freight for the carrier hit the plaintiff’s stopped tractor-trailer in Illinois, and the plaintiff lost a leg. The plaintiff alleged the broker negligently picked that carrier despite a “conditional” federal safety rating with deficiencies in driver qualification, hours of service, maintenance, and crash rates. Those are allegations. The Supreme Court decided only that a claim like that isn’t preempted — not that it wins, and not that anyone is liable. The case goes back to the lower courts for that.
A Minnesota company being a party isn’t really the point. This is where the industry lives. C.H. Robinson is by net revenue the largest freight brokerage in North America; its own materials describe roughly 75,000 customers and 450,000 contract carriers, moving about $23 billion in freight annually. Around it sits a thick cluster of Minnesota-based 3PLs, digital brokers, freight forwarders, and shipper logistics departments at the food, agriculture, retail, and medical-device companies this state is built on.
Then add the map. Minnesota sits where I-94 meets I-35, moves farm commodities south and east and finished goods north and west, and hosts one of the busiest cross-border corridors with Canada. The loads get arranged here, and a lot of them roll through here.
So when the Supreme Court says broker carrier-selection decisions are subject to state negligence law, the consequences pile up in the state where those decisions get made.
What changes for brokers, shippers, and 3PLs?
The defense now is reasonable care in carrier selection, and you build that defense out of documents, long before any accident.
The carrier qualification file becomes the case. FMCSA operating authority, safety ratings, out-of-service rates, crash history, and the Safety Measurement System percentiles — pulled at the time of the load, and kept. A vetting standard that exists as a policy but not as a record isn’t worth much in front of a jury.
Insurance verification has to be real and current. A certificate you got at onboarding in 2023 doesn’t show coverage existed on the day of the collision. Continuous monitoring and dated records are the difference between a file you can defend and one you can’t.
Every red flag needs a written answer. A carrier with a poor safety score isn’t the dangerous fact. The dangerous fact is a broker that had the score in hand, used the carrier anyway, and can’t say why. Every override needs a reason attached, in writing, at the time.
Contracts need review, but they won’t protect you from the injured person. Indemnity and hold-harmless provisions between broker and carrier split risk between those two. They don’t stop a plaintiff from naming the broker, and they’re worth exactly what the carrier’s balance sheet is worth.
Take a fresh look at the insurance program. Contingent auto liability, broker E&O, and umbrella coverage were priced in a world where preemption knocked out a big share of these claims early. That world ended on May 14, 2026. Coverage limits, defense-cost provisions, and how the contingent and primary layers fit together are all worth re-examining now, not after a claim.
What changes for people who are hurt?
The other half of this decision is simpler, and it matters to Minnesotans on the wrong end of a truck accident.
Catastrophic trucking cases regularly involve a driver with no assets and a motor carrier whose insurance doesn’t come close to the harm. The federal minimum for most interstate property carriers is $750,000, unchanged since January 1, 1985 — 41 years — and a serious brain or spine injury can burn through that in the first month of medical care.
Under Montgomery, where a broker actually was careless in picking the carrier — where the safety record was there to be seen and nobody looked, or somebody looked and ignored it — the injured person now has a claim that can’t be thrown out on preemption before discovery.
That isn’t automatic liability. It’s a claim that gets decided on the evidence.
The bigger picture
The FAAAA was written to keep states from re-regulating trucking rates and routes after federal deregulation. Nobody wrote it to decide who answers for a crash.
For years it did that job anyway, because “related to a . . . service” is a wide phrase and brokers had a plausible argument that it swallowed negligent hiring. A unanimous Court has now said the safety exception means what it says: a state’s authority over motor-vehicle safety survives, and the common law of negligence is part of how a state uses it.
For an industry that runs on paperwork, that’s fitting. The defense is the file.
If you run a brokerage, 3PL, or shipper logistics operation in Minnesota and want your carrier-vetting records and contracts reviewed against this decision — or if you were hurt in a collision with a commercial motor carrier — send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, 608 U. S. 219 (2026) (Barrett, J.), No. 24–1238, decided May 14, 2026 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring, joined by Alito, J.); 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1), (c)(2)(A); 49 C.F.R. § 387.9 ($750,000 minimum, effective January 1, 1985); C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., “About us” (retrieved July 2026) and SEC filings; Transport Topics, Top Freight Brokerage Firms (2025). This article is general commentary on a published decision and federal statutes, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Allegations described in Montgomery are allegations only; the Supreme Court decided a preemption question and did not determine liability, and no finding of wrongdoing by any party is asserted or implied here. Liability in any particular case depends entirely on that case’s facts. No outcome is promised or implied.