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.
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:
Here is what they said motor carriers should take away.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
The recording covers the full panel discussion, with the legal, insurance, and safety detail we could only summarize here.
This recap and the responses below are general information from the webinar discussion and are not legal advice.