The preemption shield is gone
The trucking defense bar spent a decade leaning on federal preemption to knock out negligent-selection claims against freight brokers. As of this spring, that argument is gone. In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on May 14, 2026 that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act does not preempt a state-law negligent-hiring claim against a broker when the claim falls within the statute's safety exception. Justice Barrett wrote for a unanimous Court that requiring a broker to use ordinary care in selecting a carrier concerns motor vehicles, most obviously the trucks that haul the load. For plaintiff firms working commercial files, the holding changes who you sue and what you plead.
The facts read like a screening intake. Shawn Montgomery was badly hurt when a tractor-trailer hauling plastic pots through Illinois struck him. C.H. Robinson had brokered the load to Caribe Transport II, a carrier that held a conditional safety rating with documented deficiencies in driver qualifications, hours of service, and maintenance. The Court did not decide whether Robinson was actually negligent. It decided only that the claim survives preemption, which means the merits now go to a jury in jurisdictions that previously dismissed these cases at the pleadings.
Building the broker file
A negligent-selection theory rises or falls on what the broker knew, or should have known, about the carrier before tendering the load. Start your discovery where the Montgomery record did, with the carrier's safety profile at the moment of selection. Pull the SAFER snapshot, the CSA BASIC scores, the safety rating, and any out-of-service history. A conditional rating sitting in the broker's own files, or reasonably available to it, is the cleanest version of this case.
From there, the document requests write themselves:
- The broker's carrier-vetting policy and onboarding checklist in effect on the tender date.
- The carrier packet, including the signed broker-carrier agreement, insurance certificates, and authority verification.
- Internal monitoring records: did the broker subscribe to a third-party vetting service, and did that service flag the carrier?
- Prior loads tendered to the same carrier, which speak to a pattern of selection despite known problems.
Plead the broker and the carrier together. Vicarious liability against the carrier for its driver is straightforward; the broker claim is the new leverage, and it often reaches the better-funded defendant. For more on how appellate holdings reshape case-building, our coverage in the case law and settlements category tracks the post-Montgomery docket.
Hours-of-service data is moving under your feet
The second front in any serious truck case is the electronic logging device. FMCSA spent 2025 and 2026 purging non-compliant ELDs from its registered list at a rate that should worry anyone relying on a defendant's raw logs. The agency revoked 38 devices in 2025, up more than 80 percent over the prior year, and kept going this year: nine devices removed in February, Safe ELD and MYLOGS struck on May 7, and TRUCKSTAFF pulled on June 23.
When a carrier's logging device is revoked, the hours-of-service record it produced becomes a question rather than an answer. That cuts both ways. A revoked device invites a fight over authenticity and reliability, and it strengthens the inference that fatigue evidence was never captured cleanly in the first place. Send your litigation-hold letter early and make it specific: the ELD unit with its make and model, the back-office telematics, the engine control module data, dispatch records, and any third-party platform that stored the logs. If the carrier swapped a revoked device after the crash, you want the chain documented before anything is overwritten.
Spoliation leverage depends on showing the duty to preserve attached when the data still existed. A prompt, detailed hold letter is what converts a missing log into an adverse-inference argument rather than a shrug. Pair the ELD demand with a request for the driver's qualification file and the carrier's own hours-of-service audit history.
The motorcycle side: comparative fault stays the battleground
Motorcycle files turn less on federal regulation and more on the comparative-fault story the defense will tell. Two defenses recur. The helmet defense, where allowed, tries to assign fault for head injuries to a rider's choice not to wear one; the answer depends heavily on your state's rule about whether non-use is even admissible, and on causation evidence tying the specific injury to the absent helmet. Lane-splitting, legal in California and debated elsewhere, draws a reflexive comparative-fault argument that often dissolves once speed-differential and sightline evidence comes in.
The evidentiary playbook mirrors the auto side: scene telematics, event data recorder downloads, and prompt preservation. Our auto accidents coverage details EDR discovery that applies cleanly to two-wheel cases. Treat the helmet and lane-splitting defenses as damages-apportionment problems to be neutralized with reconstruction, not as liability concessions.
What to do this quarter
Montgomery did not invent broker liability, but it removed the procedural exit that let brokers leave these cases early. Re-screen your open trucking files for a brokered tender and a carrier with a poor safety record at selection. Audit your hold letters to confirm they name the ELD and its vendor. And watch the truck and motorcycle docket as trial courts apply the safety exception, because the next round of fights will be about how much the broker actually knew, not whether the claim can be brought at all.