Supreme Court Ruling Triggers Broker Crackdown on Unsafe Carriers

S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II that freight brokers can be held liable under state law for negligently selecting carriers with poor safety records. This decision eliminated the federal preemption shield brokers had relied on for years, making carrier selection a direct source of legal exposure.

H. Robinson—the largest freight broker in North America—began notifying carriers that those exceeding intervention thresholds on FMCSA BASIC safety scores would lose access to its load board, effective immediately. H. Robinson is repricing carrier risk in real time to mitigate newly crystallized legal liability.

Carriers with elevated FMCSA safety metrics now face immediate loss of freight access, meaning brokers are operationalizing the Supreme Court's ruling by actively culling their carrier networks. This represents a structural shift in how brokers manage risk—from legal argumentation to operational triage—and signals that nuclear verdicts against trucking-related defendants (regularly exceeding $10 million) are now a direct concern for 3PL balance sheets. For supply chain professionals, this creates dual pressures: carriers face stricter qualification standards and sudden capacity removal, while shippers may experience tighter carrier availability and potential upward pressure on rates as brokers consolidate around safety-certified partners. The ruling and the broker response together reshape the competitive calculus for small and mid-size carriers, many of whom may lack the operational maturity or capital to rapidly improve FMCSA scores.