The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous 9-0 ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport, holding that the safety exception under 49 U.S.C. §14501(c)(2)(A) preserves state-law negligent hiring claims against brokers because those claims concern motor vehicle safety. Justice Barrett's analysis was direct: a negligent hiring claim against a broker who selected a motor carrier with a known substandard safety record plainly falls within the safety exception's reach. The Court was not writing new law. It was reading the statute.

‍

The facts were not subtle. Shawn Montgomery was struck by a truck driven by Yosniel Varela-Mojena, hauling a load for Caribe Transport II, LLC. C.H. Robinson, one of the largest freight brokers in North America, coordinated the shipment. Montgomery alleged C.H. Robinson knew, or should have known, from Caribe Transport's safety rating that hiring them was reasonably likely to result in crashes injuring others. The District Court held the FAAAA preempted the claim. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed. Justice Kavanaugh, concurring with Justice Alito, acknowledged that litigation and insurance costs will be significant even when brokers prevail, and those costs will cascade through the economy. That warning was directed at Congress. It was not a basis for a different outcome.

‍

The circuit split on this question had been visible for years. The Seventh and Eleventh Circuits were blocking these claims. Other circuits were not. When you have that kind of split on a question this significant, certiorari follows. When the statutory language is as clear as it was here, you get a unanimous decision. Every signal was there. If your risk advisors did not see this coming, you need new advisors.

‍

Most early commentary has treated this as a trucking story. It is not. Montgomery v. Caribe Transport is a negligent hiring ruling. The trucking context is where the case arose. The principle the Court affirmed reaches every industry that outsources labor, services, or operations to a third party where you had access to information that told you that third party was unsafe. Staffing and temp labor companies, general contractors selecting subcontractors, security service firms, healthcare organizations contracting outside placement firms, and employers facing EPLI exposure are all operating under a legal theory that now carries unanimous Supreme Court authority. The mechanism differs by industry. The legal theory is now identical across all of them.

‍

Negligent supervision and negligent retention follow the same chain. These claims were viable before Montgomery. This ruling reinforces all of them. Nearly every commercial fleet operates some form of telematics today. Hard braking alerts, speeding events, following distance violations — the data exists. If a client has telematics data showing a driver repeatedly triggered harsh braking and speeding alerts over six months and that driver then caused a fatal crash, plaintiff counsel will subpoena every telematics report from that period. Then they will ask one question: what did you do with this data? If the answer is nothing, the telematics system did not reduce exposure. It documented negligence. Having the technology and ignoring its outputs is worse than not having it.

‍

The regulatory layer compounds matters further. Carriers who accumulate poor safety scores under FMCSA's Safety Measurement System face CSA interventions that escalate to operating authority revocation. Brokers and shippers who select carriers with visible FMCSA SMS warning signals — data publicly available at no cost — and fail to document their review of that data have handed plaintiff attorneys a ready-made argument. That argument now carries a unanimous Supreme Court endorsement. The civil liability exposure and the license revocation exposure run on parallel tracks. Both will be in the complaint.

‍

For insurance programs, the effects are direct. Commercial auto carriers will revise broker-contingent endorsements and tighten primary policy terms. Excess and umbrella towers will raise attachment points and add manuscript exclusions targeting negligent carrier selection where FMCSA data was available and not documented at time of placement. GL forms covering staffing companies, temp agencies, and contractors will tighten negligent hiring exclusion language. EPLI carriers will expand applications to require documented third-party labor vetting protocols — not policy statements that vetting occurs, but evidence that a system exists and is followed. Insurance brokers who failed to advise clients on negligent hiring exposure across transportation, staffing, construction, and healthcare now face their own professional liability exposure.

‍

The documentation gap is the underwriting gap. Clients who cannot produce vetting files, coaching logs, continuous MVR records, and written supervision protocols will face higher premiums, tighter terms, and underwriters demanding proof of process before they quote at all.

‍

At EIG Risk, this process was not built in response to Montgomery. The ruling confirmed what we already knew needed to be done. Every carrier, subcontractor, and vendor selection requires a documented file, with FMCSA SMS data pulled and retained, CSA scores reviewed, safety ratings verified, and insurance currency confirmed — all timestamped. Monitoring is not a renewal-cycle event. We run continuous MVR monitoring and track FMCSA status changes on approved vendor lists at defined intervals. Written vendor approval standards, contractual indemnity requirements, AI endorsements with correct ISO forms, and primary non-contributory language sit above a telematics coaching framework with written supervision protocols and documented disciplinary records. And we are in every claim from day one — monitoring reserve adequacy, challenging reservations of rights in writing, attending mediations, and coordinating defense counsel with demonstrated results in the specific vertical the claim arises from.

‍

The Supreme Court read the statute. It said what it meant. The question was never whether this ruling was coming. The question was whether your risk advisor was building your defense before the decision came down, or whether they are calling you now to explain what it means. If your broker's first conversation about negligent hiring, telematics documentation, continuous MVR monitoring, and supervision protocols happened the day after this ruling dropped, you were already behind.

‍