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How Motor Carriers Can Prove They're Safe After the Montgomery Ruling

Tiffany Houkom

Tiffany Houkom

Graphic for SambaSafety's webinar: Unrated and Exposed: Motor Carrier Risk After the Montgomery Ruling

The Montgomery ruling changed the stakes for every motor carrier that hauls broker freight. The broker liability defense that used to end these cases early is gone, and the Supreme Court did not replace it with a federal standard. For carriers, the fallout is tougher vetting.

Brokers now have a direct financial reason to scrutinize your safety record before they award a load. With most carriers unrated by FMCSA, the burden is on you to prove you are safe.

Key Takeaways

  • The ruling removed brokers' early-dismissal defense, and no federal standard replaced the vague "reasonable care" requirement. It is now decided state by state.
  • With about 92% of active carriers unrated by FMCSA, brokers vet with CSA BASIC scores, third-party services, and insurance and claims data. A satisfactory rating alone is no longer enough.
  • Four safety levers sit within your control: driver qualification, hours of service, inspection and maintenance, and recordable crash rate.
  • The carriers that come out ahead will be the ones that document and act on their safety data, not just the ones that meet the minimum.

Where these insights come from

A shift this significant deserves the people who see it from every angle. In our recent webinar, Unrated and Exposed: Motor Carrier Risk After the Montgomery Ruling, SambaSafety General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer John Diana moderated a panel of three experts:

  • Gregory Lawton, a transportation attorney at Scopelitis who represents brokers and motor carriers on risk and contracting matters
  • Steve Wilhelms, President and CEO of NextRisk, with three decades in trucking safety, compliance, and risk
  • Brian Hammer, a senior risk management consultant at Nationwide who works at the intersection of risk and insurance

Here is what they said motor carriers should take away.

What the Montgomery ruling changed

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0. The decision removed a defense that freight brokers had used to get negligent selection claims dismissed early, before the facts of a crash were ever weighed.

Here is the part that matters most for carriers: The Court did not define what counts as reasonable care in selecting a carrier. As Lawton explained, brokers must exercise "reasonable or ordinary care," but that standard is now left to the states, decided case by case and tied to the facts of each crash.

The rules did not get clearer. They got more uncertain, and brokers are the ones carrying that uncertainty now. Plaintiff attorneys were already inclined to name the broker that selected the carrier. That is often where the deeper pockets are, since many carriers hold only about $1 million in auto liability coverage.

The practical result is simple: your safety record is no longer a back-office detail. It shapes whether you win freight.

What freight brokers are looking at now

Start with the core problem: About 92% of active interstate motor carriers do not have an FMCSA safety rating. Even a satisfactory rating is no longer a shield on its own. The panel pointed to a recent $604 million verdict in Dallas involving a carrier that held a satisfactory rating.

Brokers are starting to look deeper. According to the panel, they now weigh:

  • CSA BASIC scores, out-of-service percentages, and inspection history
  • Third-party vetting services that project BASIC scores from public data
  • Insurance and claims history

Some brokers apply the FMCSA high-risk definition as a cutoff: a carrier with two or more BASICs at or above the 90th percentile for two consecutive months. Land in that group, and some brokers will not tender you a load.

There is one more shift worth mentioning. Freight brokers and insurers now treat dual authority as added risk. Carriers that hold both brokerage and motor carrier authority under one DOT number face compounding exposure. The panel said splitting the two is quickly becoming a best practice, and some carriers are going further and separating into distinct legal entities. Insurers are wary too. They may cover your motor carrier operation but hesitate on the brokerage side while the liability picture is unsettled. Some carriers will have to decide whether staying in brokering is worth it. It's recommended that you talk to your insurer before restructuring.

How to build a safety profile that holds up

You cannot make the FMCSA rate you, but you can control what freight brokers and insurers see. The webinar centered on four levers, drawn from the deficiencies the Court flagged in the underlying case:

  1. Driver qualification. MVR checks, license status, and DQ file documentation. This lever is yours to own. The panel was clear that carriers, not brokers, are responsible for qualifying drivers, so make it airtight.
  2. Hours of service. ELD compliance, HOS records, and telematics data.
  3. Inspection, repair, and maintenance. Your CSA Vehicle Maintenance BASIC and inspection outcomes.
  4. Recordable crash rate. Your CSA Crash Indicator BASIC and continuous federal data.

Two principles tie these together.

First, treat this as a safety program, not a checklist. Policies only help if you enforce them. Lawton gave a concrete example: a carrier that audits records of duty status for hours-of-service compliance, trains drivers after violations, and takes corrective action tends to post a better HOS BASIC. That score is exactly what brokers see. A documented fleet safety program that you follow consistently is what turns these four levers into a defensible record.

>>> Enforcement starts with the policy itself. Our driver safety policy guide covers what to include so yours holds up when it matters.

Second, don't collect data you don't plan to act on. Wilhelms warned that pulling in more driver data than you can manage just creates more gaps for a plaintiff attorney to target. Unused data works against you, not for you.

Hammer put the same idea in insurance terms. Cameras and telematics don't prove a safety culture. Acting on what they show does. He has seen carriers with telematics installed and speeding violations on record, but no coaching or intervention strategies behind them. Underwriters notice the difference.

>>> Spotting a risk is only half the job. Our guide to acting on driver risk data shows how to turn what you find into measurable risk reduction.

What good looks like moving forward

The panel agreed on where this is heading: the carriers that win more loads will be the ones that can prove their safety record. Five habits separate them:

  • Know your CSA profile
  • Move to continuous monitoring
  • Build an evidence trail
  • Engage your insurance partner early
  • Act on your data

A few of these deserve a closer look.

Know your profile, then clean it up. Wilhelms recommended reviewing your CSA history and challenging inspections that are wrong through FMCSA's DataQs process, while working to avoid new adverse events.

Engage your insurer early. Hammer expects insurers to grow more selective while the standard is unsettled, especially for carriers with brokerage authority. Start that conversation with your agent now.

Make safety everyone's job. At many carriers, safety lives only in the safety department, and sales is left out. Everyone who books freight owns a piece of the outcome. That is the difference between a policy on paper and a real fleet safety culture.

How SambaSafety helps you stay consistent

The panel kept returning to one word: consistency. Diana framed it as bringing order to chaos. Good going forward is a process that runs the same way every time. He added that getting there takes two things: well-documented processes you actually follow, and well-engineered tools to apply them.

That is where SambaSafety fits in. Our tools for consistency include:

These work together so your safety program runs the same way across every driver and location.

Download the full webinar recording

The recording covers the full panel discussion, with the legal, insurance, and safety detail we could only summarize here.

ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

This recap and the responses below are general information from the webinar discussion and are not legal advice.

More From the Panel: Attendee Q&A

Is building a safety profile limited to the four items on the slide?

No. Those four map to the deficiencies this ruling flagged, so treat them as the baseline, not the full picture. A complete safety profile can include much more, and requesting a full safety plan from a carrier is a reasonable and increasingly expected step.

What role do telematics and ELD data play in vetting, versus lagging indicators like MVRs?

A significant one. Telematics gives near-real-time behavioral data that MVRs and CSA scores alone do not capture. But the data is not the differentiator. Acting on it is. Insurers can increasingly tell the difference between a carrier that has telematics deployed and one that uses it to coach drivers, address risky behavior, and show improvement over time.

Only about 30% of fleets share telematics data with insurers today. Do you expect that to change, and could insurers become the de facto standard-setters for reasonable vetting?

We expect telematics data sharing to increase, especially post-Montgomery. SambaSafety research finds 79% of fleets that do not currently share data say it is simply because no one has asked. As vetting standards sharpen, the data behind your safety program becomes a differentiator rather than a compliance checkbox. Insurers with strong telematics-based underwriting models could increasingly shape what reasonable carrier vetting looks like across the industry, though that is an emerging trend, not an established standard yet.

Is there a strict definition of a freight broker? If a company just hires a carrier to move its goods, is it a broker?

Under federal law, a broker is a company that arranges transportation for someone else's freight and is paid to do it. A company hiring a carrier to move its own goods is a shipper, not a broker. This matters for the ruling: shippers that hire carriers directly were never protected by the liability defense in the first place, so Montgomery does not change their risk. It closes the gap specifically for brokers.

Does the ruling apply to other broker relationships, like rideshare or non-emergency medical transportation?

Montgomery is specific to freight brokers and the FAAAA's safety exception. Rideshare and non-emergency medical transportation brokers generally operate under different regulatory frameworks, so the ruling does not directly extend to them. Similar liability questions could surface in those industries through future litigation, but that would require separate legal analysis.

Does the ruling affect intrastate brokers?

Not directly. Montgomery addressed FAAAA preemption, a federal question tied to interstate transportation. Intrastate arrangements are generally governed by state law, so the ruling does not directly change intrastate broker liability. How each state applies negligent-hiring standards to brokers still varies, so we recommend you confirm the specifics with your legal counsel.

I run a safe operation but I am in the 92% FMCSA has not rated. How do I stand out?

Keep your DOT compliance profile clean, current, and documented, since brokers and insurers increasingly review it during vetting. Share your safety metrics proactively, such as CSA scores, training completion, and telematics participation, instead of waiting to be asked. Highlighting active risk management in RFPs and broker conversations sets you apart from carriers that only meet the minimum.

Do you recommend using PSPs?

Yes, as one input in hiring. Pre-Employment Screening Program records show a driver's crash and inspection history from FMCSA, which complements MVR checks and CSA data for a fuller risk picture. They work best alongside other tools rather than as a standalone decision point.

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