Industry Alert
The U.S. Supreme Court's May 14, 2026 ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe changes the freight broker liability conversation. Here is what happened, why it matters for shippers, and how Cowtown vets carriers before a load ever moves.
TL;DR
A landmark 9-0 ruling just exposed brokers who do not properly vet their carriers. Here is what it means for your freight, and how Cowtown is already ahead of it.
In 2017, a truck driver for a carrier called Caribe Transport II was hauling a load of plastic pots through Illinois. The load was arranged by C.H. Robinson, one of the largest freight brokers in the country. The driver veered off course in his Mack truck and struck a tractor-trailer parked on the shoulder of the road.
The driver of that parked truck, Shawn Montgomery, lost his leg and sustained permanent, life-altering injuries.
Montgomery sued C.H. Robinson. His argument was straightforward. Caribe Transport had a conditional safety rating from the FMCSA when C.H. Robinson hired them. The carrier had already been flagged for driver qualification failures, hours-of-service violations, poor maintenance records, and an elevated crash rate. Montgomery argued the broker knew or should have known that putting this carrier on the road was a foreseeable danger to everyone on that highway.
For years, C.H. Robinson used a federal law called the FAAAA to get these kinds of state-level lawsuits thrown out. On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that shield is gone for good.
The ruling means freight brokers can now be held liable under state law when they negligently select an unsafe carrier. The FAAAA’s safety exception preserves every state’s right to bring these claims. That resolves a split among federal appeals courts and changes the legal landscape for all 28,000 freight brokers operating in the United States.
“If brokers were preempted from state tort law with no federal safety standards to fill the void, they would operate in a black hole with no meaningful safety-related regulation at all.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, concurring opinion
This ruling is a wake-up call for anyone moving freight. Whether you are using a broker or booking a carrier directly, you now have a roadmap for the questions to ask and the boxes to check before a truck ever leaves your dock.
Here is what to look for:
On insurance, the baseline to confirm today is contingent auto liability . This coverage steps in when a carrier’s primary auto policy fails to pay out after an accident, which happens more often than most shippers realize. As the legal landscape develops post-Montgomery, more insurance layers may become relevant.
We have been doing this the right way since day one. At Cowtown, our carrier vetting process is rigorous, documented, and applied to every single carrier we consider placing on a load.
The red flags present in the Caribe Transport situation, including a conditional safety rating, driver qualification failures, and an elevated crash rate, are exactly what our screening process is built to identify and reject before a truck ever gets dispatched.
Our process includes:
In the last three years, Cowtown has moved 43,200 loads with 10 total accidents, a 0.023 percent accident rate. The industry average is roughly 0.2 percent. That means Cowtown runs at nearly 10 times better than the industry average. We were not named in a single lawsuit, and neither were our clients.
This ruling does not change how we operate. It confirms why we operate the way we do. Discovery requests in post-Montgomery lawsuits will seek carrier vetting procedures, internal screening criteria, communications with carriers, and any safety data that was reviewed or ignored. We are prepared to stand behind every decision we make because we document all of it.
Regardless of who you broker with, ask the hard questions:
A broker worth trusting will have solid answers.
If you have questions, reach out and we will walk you through our process.
More from the journal
When Cowtown Logistics decided it was time to rebuild our website, we knew this was not a small decision. A logistics company website is not just a brochure. It is a first impression for shippers, carriers, agents, recruits, and partners. It is often the first place people go to decide whether your company feels credible, current, and worth contacting. That is why we slowed down and treated the process seriously. We wanted a site that represented who we are, supported our growth, and was built for modern search instead of old assumptions. That search led us to BrokerOS , and working with Josh Asbury ended up being one of the best business decisions we have made this year.
A Different Kind of Shout Out Most of the customer stories we share on this blog are about the businesses we move freight for. This one is different. Today we want to publicly thank the company that fundamentally changed how we run Cowtown Logistics. We are talking about Prax Performance , the Fort Worth based human performance institute founded by brothers Andrew Geesbreght and Alex Geesbreght . If you have been around our business in the last few years and noticed that something feels different about us, this is why. The training we received from Prax Performance is the single most impactful investment we have made in our company, and it did not start with a strategy session or a business plan. It started with us.
A customer shout out from Cowtown Logistics to Silver Creek Materials , Marshall Dow , and COO Aaron Fields . Here is why their Fort Worth recycling, mining, and land reclamation operation is one of the most impressive we have ever hauled for. A Thank You to a Customer Who Made Us Better At Cowtown Logistics, we talk a lot about the customers who trust us with their freight. Today we want to flip that around and talk about one of ours. This is a customer shout out blog for Silver Creek Materials, Marshall Dow, and their Chief Operations Officer Aaron Fields.
This website uses cookies to improve functionality and user experience. By continuing to use this site, you acknowledge our use of cookies. See our privacy policy .