In a unanimous 9-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that freight brokers can be held personally liable for negligently hiring dangerous trucking companies, including those flooding our highways with illegal aliens and unqualified foreign drivers who can’t even speak English, let alone follow CDL regulations!
Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered the opinion in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, confirming that federal law does NOT shield these greedy middleman brokers from state negligence lawsuits.
The case stems from a horrific 2017 crash in Illinois where trucker Shawn Montgomery lost part of his leg after being smashed by a carrier hired by freight giant C.H. Robinson.
AP reported:
The justices ruled unanimously in favor of Shawn Montgomery, whose parked vehicle was hit by a speeding truck driver on an Illinois highway in 2017. He wants to sue C.H. Robinson, the country’s largest freight broker by size, over its role in putting the driver on the road despite what he called “serious red flags.”
The decision does not mean Montgomery will necessarily win the lawsuit, which the company is contesting. But the ruling opens the door to increased liability for freight brokers, a key part of the industry.
The Trump administration and companies such as Amazon had argued that letting the suit go forward would expose logistics companies to liability under a “patchwork” of state laws.
[…]
Montgomery’s lawyers say the trucker had been cited for careless driving in another crash months earlier and that the carrier he worked for had been involved with at least three crashes in a span of about five months. Montgomery’s lawsuit said C.H. Robinson should share liability because it hired the carrier despite those problems.
Montgomery’s appeal was backed by more than two dozen states. They said a win for him would help bolster safety in an industry that moves billions of tons of goods across billions of miles every year.
Hellbound and Down 