What the Supreme Court Did on May 14, 2026
For years, freight brokers killed negligent-hiring claims at the motion-to-dismiss stage by arguing the FAAAA preempted them. That argument is dead.
The Preemption Shield That Just Fell
In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the FAAAA’s safety exception, the carve-out at 49 U.S.C. sec. 14501(c)(2)(A) preserving state authority over motor vehicles, covers the exact negligent-hiring claim brokers had been defeating. Picking who drives an 80,000-pound truck down I-10 is a safety decision.
Why This Matters on I-10, I-20, and I-49
If the broker that arranged the load skipped the safety check, ignored bad CSA scores, or ignored a revoked authority, that broker is now a defendant. In a corridor this dependent on brokered freight, that is a new layer of accountability over every interstate in Louisiana and east Texas. You can pull a carrier’s record from the CSA Safety Measurement System in seconds.