Day on Torts
A negligent hiring claim against a logistics broker who hired a trucking company to perform the interstate transport of goods was not preempted by federal law.
In Montgomery v. Caribe Transportation II LLC, 2026 U.S. LEXIS 2036, — U.S. — (May 14, 2026), the plaintiff was a truck driver who was injured when his truck was struck by another truck that was hauling a load of plastic pots through Illinois. The truck that injured plaintiff was being operated by Caribe Transport. The defendant at issue in this appeal was the transportation broker who hired Caribe Transport and coordinated the shipment.
The plaintiff filed a negligent hiring claim against the transportation broker, arguing that due to Caribe Transport’s safety rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the broker “knew (or should have known) that choosing Caribe Transport to transport goods was reasonably likely to result in crashes that would injure others.” The district court and Seventh Circuit held that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (“FAAA”) preempted the plaintiff’s negligent hiring claim, but the United States Supreme Court reversed.
The Supreme Court held that “[a] claim that one company negligently hired another to transport goods is not preempted by the FAAA because States retain authority to regulate safety ‘with respect to motor vehicles’ under the Act.” The Court explained that the FAAA “expressly preempts certain state regulations involving motor carriers,” but also pointed out that the preemption includes a safety exception. The safety exception “provides that the preemption ‘shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.’” (citing 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(2)(A)). The Court ruled that “negligent-hiring claims of the type [the plaintiff] presses [were] claims ‘with respect to motor vehicles,’” and that they therefore fell within the safety exception.
The defendant broker raised several arguments that preemption should apply here. First, it argued that this interpretation would mean that “everything that Congress preempted would also qualify for the safety exception.” The Court wrote, however, that it could “imagine many state laws that are related to motor carrier prices, routes, and services…that have no relationship to safety.” Second, the broker argued that this interpretation would create a surplusage, which the Court rejected by explaining that a surplusage existed whether the “with respect to motor vehicles” language was interpreted narrowly or broadly. Finally, the broker asserted that “interpreting the safety exception to cover brokers would create an anomaly with subsection (b) of the FAAA.” The Court agreed that it was unclear why a safety exception was included in subsection (c) but not (b), but it ultimately ruled that “it would be even odder to say that the alleged tort—the negligent hiring of an unsafe motor carrier whose truck caused injury—is not an exercise of the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.” (internal quotation omitted).
Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion, in which Justice Alito joined, agreeing that the safety exception applied here but explaining that “this case is closer than the Court’s opinion perhaps might suggest.”