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A facet of the trucking industry little known to the general public has had a big impact on highway safety — and last week a US Supreme Court ruling ensured that it will have to take responsibility for the rigs it helps send out on the road.
That means innocent Americans who have been maimed or killed in big-rig crashes caused by negligent truck drivers may finally pursue justice.
And freight brokers that chase profits by contracting with unsafe trucking carriers — particularly those that hire unvetted illegal-immigrant drivers — will have to rethink their business practices.
The court’s unanimous 9-0 decision in Montgomery vs. Caribe Transport II, issued Thursday, cleared the way for victims to sue freight brokers for alleged “negligent hiring.”
Trucking industry veterans and victim advocates who have been ringing the alarm on Wall Street brokers’ shady practices are rejoicing in response.
“We are profoundly grateful to God for this miracle,” Shannon Everett of American Truckers United told me.
“This ruling clearly recognizes that highway safety demands full accountability from every participant on our nation’s roadways.”
Freight brokers are the industry’s middlemen.
They handle the logistics of connecting producers that have goods to be moved to carriers whose trucks and drivers can get those goods to buyers.
But for years, Everett said, brokers have “operated behind a shield of presumed immunity.”
They chose carriers to move the goods, but legally bore no responsibility when the carriers they hired operated negligently.
And when brokers chased profits over safety by hiring cut-rate carriers, Everett said, it “pitted Main Street trucking companies against Wall Street freight brokers . . . and contributed to an untold number of preventable deaths on our highways.”
According to Everett, the American trucking industry has been infiltrated by foreign “chameleon carriers” that took advantage of a formerly high-trust industry and bastardized it for profit.
The illegal-immigrant driver who speaks no English doesn’t magically end up behind the wheel of a big rig by himself: An entire ecosystem of greedy foreign and domestic elements put him in the driver’s seat, abetted by failed policy decisions that left American drivers as collateral damage.
The Biden administration not only failed to maintain the southern border and admitted millions making suspect claims of asylum, it gave many of those people work authorizations to boot. --->READ MORE HERE
What Montgomery v. Caribe Transport Means for You:
On May 14, 2026, the United States Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision that changes the landscape for anyone injured in a commercial truck crash. In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, the Court ruled that freight brokers, the middlemen who arrange truck shipments, can be held legally responsible when they hire dangerous trucking companies that go on to cause crashes. If you or someone you love has been hurt in a truck wreck, this ruling matters. It may significantly expand who can be held accountable for your injuries, and it may open a path to compensation that did not exist before.
The Story Behind the Case
Shawn Montgomery was inside his tractor-trailer, pulled over on the side of an Illinois highway, when another truck veered off course and slammed into him. The driver, Yosniel Varela-Mojena, was hauling a load of plastic pots for a trucking company called Caribe Transport II. Mr. Montgomery’s injuries were catastrophic. His leg had to be amputated. He sustained other severe and permanent injuries. Here is the part that matters for this case. Caribe Transport did not find this load on its own. A freight broker called C.H. Robinson Worldwide, one of the largest brokers in the country, arranged it. And at the time the broker hired Caribe Transport, that trucking company had a “conditional” safety rating from federal regulators. That rating meant the company had been flagged for problems with driver qualifications, hours-of-service compliance, vehicle inspection and maintenance, and its crash rate. Mr. Montgomery sued the driver, the trucking company, and the broker. Against the broker, his claim was simple. You knew or should have known this trucking company was dangerous, and you hired them anyway. For years, brokers argued they could not be sued for this kind of claim because of a federal law that limits statea regulation of the trucking industry. The lower courts agreed with the broker. The Supreme Court reversed unanimously.
What Is a Freight Broker, and Why Should You Care?
Most people have never heard of a freight broker. Here is how it works. When a company needs to ship goods, say a manufacturer sending pallets from Texas to Illinois, they usually do not call a trucking company directly. Instead, they call a broker. The broker’s job is to find a trucking company willing to haul the load, negotiate the price, and coordinate pickup and delivery. The broker makes money on the spread between what the shipper pays and what the trucking company charges. Brokers are everywhere in the freight industry. There are roughly 28,000 of them in the United States, and they arrange about one-third of all freight that moves on American highways. That is hundreds of millions of loads every year. The catch is that brokers do not own the trucks. They do not employ the drivers. They are not the ones behind the wheel. So when a crash happens, brokers have long argued they have nothing to do with it. The Supreme Court just rejected that argument. --->READ MORE HERE
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