Montgomery Changed the Stakes: What Freight Brokers Need to Do About Carrier Vetting Now

On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC , and the freight brokerage industry felt it immediately. The Court held that negligent hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act’s (FAAAA) safety exception, meaning state-law negligent selection claims can now move forward in court.

The practical takeaway is not panic. It is clarity.

What this ruling means operationally:

• Informal, undocumented carrier vetting is harder to defend when a claim is made against your brokerage.
• Consistency matters: a process that works differently depending on who’s handling the load creates exposure.
• Documentation is no longer optional. If you cannot show what you checked, when you checked it, and who approved the carrier, you are working without a safety net.

This is the moment to ask whether your vetting process is built to hold up, not just to get loads covered.

What a Well-Designed Vetting Process Actually Requires

Most brokerages have some version of a vetting process. The question Montgomery forces is whether yours would hold up to scrutiny after an incident. FMCSA guidance points to a baseline of factors every broker should be reviewing, and legal analysis following the ruling makes clear the emphasis is shifting toward what you checked and whether you can prove it.

A defensible process needs to do three things:

1. Verify before you tender. Authority status, insurance certificates, operating history, and safety-related indicators should be confirmed before a carrier touches a load. Spot-checking after the fact is not a process.
2. Make it repeatable and documented. If your vetting depends on tribal knowledge, a specific rep’s habits, or a mental checklist, it is not a process. It is a routine that breaks down the moment that person is out of the office. Every step should be recorded and traceable.
3. Monitor carriers after onboarding. A carrier that passed your checks six months ago may not pass them today. Authority can be revoked, insurance can lapse, and safety ratings can change. Ongoing monitoring is the part most brokerages skip, and it is increasingly the part that matters.

The standard is not perfection. It is a documented, consistent effort that you can point to.

Why Highway Fits This Moment

There are tools that help with pieces of this problem. Highway is built around the whole problem.

Highway’s platform centers on carrier identity verification, digital onboarding, and automated compliance monitoring .

The value is not just fraud prevention, though Highway does that well. After launching Highway, TA identified more than 1,200 carriers that did not meet their standards , which is a meaningful number. The deeper value is what it does for your process documentation. When a claim is made, you need to show what you did. A platform that logs verification steps, timestamps approvals, and flags exceptions gives you something to point to.

Before Highway: Vetting lives in spreadsheets, email threads, and rep memory. Documentation is inconsistent. Monitoring happens only when someone remembers to check.

With Highway: Carrier identity is verified at onboarding. Compliance status is monitored continuously. Every step is logged and traceable.

For BrokerPro customers, we have made this easier to access.

Choose the Right Path Based on Your Volume

BrokerPro is now a Highway reseller partner , and we have worked to make access to Highway straightforward for brokerages of any size.

Depending on your monthly load volume, here is how we can help:

The goal in both cases is the same: get your vetting process onto a documented, repeatable system before the next incident puts your informal process under a microscope.

Review Your Process Now

Montgomery did not create new obligations overnight. But it did remove a defense that many brokerages were relying on, whether they knew it or not. The brokerages that come out of this in the best position are the ones that treat it as an operations problem and fix it before it becomes a legal one.

Ready to review your vetting process? Book a conversation with BrokerPro . We will walk through your current process, identify gaps, and help you figure out whether Highway is the right fit for your operation and your volume.

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly did the Supreme Court decide in Montgomery v. Caribe?

On May 14, 2026, the Court ruled 9-0 that state-law negligent hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA). Before this ruling, brokers in certain circuits could argue that federal law blocked these claims at the courthouse door. That defense is now gone in all 50 states. The ruling does not make brokers automatically liable after a carrier incident, but it does mean those claims can move forward in state court and be decided by a jury.

Does this ruling mean I am automatically liable if a carrier I booked causes an accident?

No. The Court did not establish automatic liability. What it established is that negligent selection claims can now reach a jury instead of being dismissed on preemption grounds. Whether a broker is found liable depends on whether they exercised reasonable care in selecting the carrier. A documented, consistent vetting process is the primary evidence a broker can put in front of a jury to show that reasonable care was used.

What does “reasonable care” in carrier selection actually require?

Based on FMCSA guidance and post-ruling legal analysis, a reasonable carrier selection process covers four areas at minimum:

• Active operating authority confirmed at the time of booking, not pulled weeks later
• Insurance currency and limits verified against a current certificate of insurance
• Safety rating and CSA scores reviewed for conditional or unsatisfactory ratings, out-of-service indicators, and crash history
• Carrier identity confirmed to reduce fraud risk and catch misrepresentation

The critical word is contemporaneous. Evidence you generate after a claim arrives is worth far less than a timestamped record created at the moment of booking.

Is checking FMCSA SAFER enough to satisfy my vetting obligations?

No. FMCSA authority confirms a carrier is registered to operate, but it is not a safety endorsement. Post-Montgomery legal analysis is consistent on this point: authority status alone is a thin vetting record. A defensible process also includes safety rating status, CSA BASIC scores, inspection history, out-of-service rates, insurance filing status, and identity verification. Relying only on a SAFER lookup leaves significant gaps that a plaintiff’s attorney will use.

How does Highway help with post-Montgomery compliance?

Highway structures the vetting steps that most brokerages currently handle manually or inconsistently into a documented, repeatable workflow. It covers carrier identity verification, insurance and authority checks, onboarding documentation, and ongoing compliance monitoring after a carrier is approved. The ongoing monitoring piece is particularly important: a carrier that passed your checks at onboarding may not pass them six months later, and Highway flags those changes automatically rather than waiting for someone to remember to recheck. For BrokerPro customers, we can help you get access to Highway based on your monthly load volume. Start the conversation here .

This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult qualified legal counsel regarding your specific compliance obligations.