Supreme Court Case Could Shield Brokers From Carrier Selection Liability

Key Details The Supreme Court is deciding whether brokers can be sued for negligently selecting unsafe carriers. The case stems from a 2017 Illinois highway crash where an injured man sued not only the driver and carrier, but also C.H. Robinson, the freight broker that arranged the load. The core question: does federal law protect brokers from state negligence claims over their carrier vetting decisions? Why It Matters This case exposes a critical gap between legal protections and real-world operations. Brokers have no uniform standards for selecting carriers, no federal requirements for safety vetting, and no consistent criteria for evaluating crash histories or violation patterns. Each broker sets its own approval standards, ranging from rigorous to minimal. The Safety Rating Problem Most brokers rely on the FMCSA's satisfactory safety rating as their baseline, but this metric is nearly useless for identifying actual carrier safety. Only about 3 percent of America's 750,000 active carriers hold a safety rating. The remaining 97 percent have no rating at all because the FMCSA lacks resources to conduct compliance reviews on the entire industry. What's Next A Supreme Court decision is expected by June 2026. The brokerage industry wants brokers shielded from liability, while plaintiff attorneys argue carriers should be held accountable for poor carrier selection practices. The outcome could reshape accountability across the entire freight industry.