[TOLEDO, OH, May 14, 2026] — Every year, more than 5,000 people are killed in crashes involving large commercial trucks in the United States. Many of those tragedies involve carriers hired by powerful freight brokers, the middlemen who connect shippers with trucking companies.
In a rare and unanimous 9-0 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC that freight brokers can be held liable under state law when the unsafe carriers they hire cause deaths and serious injuries on America’s roads. The ruling rejected the freight brokerage industry’s sweeping claim of immunity and reaffirmed that freight brokers were not exempted from state safety laws.
“Behind every truck crash statistic is a family whose world was shattered. Freight brokers have spent years and millions of dollars trying to convince courts that they are untouchable, even when a broker knowingly hires an unsafe truck company. Today’s decision affirms something fundamental: the right of victims to hold every responsible party accountable.”
— Michael Leizerman, Partner, The Law Firm for Truck Safety
What the Case Was About
The freight brokerage industry argued that a 1994 federal law, the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA), immunized brokers from state negligence claims arising from the crashes of carriers they hired. They claimed that no matter how unsafe the trucking company they selected, injured victims and grieving families could not sue them in court.
The Supreme Court disagreed. The FAAAA was designed to deregulate the trucking industry economically, to free it from government price controls and route mandates. It was never meant to strip away the right of crash victims to seek justice under ordinary state safety laws that courts have enforced for generations.
The Campaign Behind the Decision
The Law Firm for Truck Safety, a national firm dedicated exclusively to serious commercial truck crash cases, was the driving force behind building the winning coalition in this case. The firm recruited and coordinated a broad, politically diverse alliance that included Attorneys General from Ohio, Texas, Illinois, New York, and more than 20 additional states, who filed a powerful friend-of-the-court brief urging the Court to protect victims’ rights.
According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System maintained by the U.S. Department of Transportation, 5,472 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks in 2023 alone. The freight brokerage industry has expanded dramatically over the past two decades, and brokers now control much of the workflow for the nation’s trucking carriers.
“We built this case knowing we were going up against a well-funded industry that had convinced some courts its immunity argument was airtight. We recruited allies from across the political spectrum because the safety of the American public is not a partisan issue. The nine Supreme Court justices agreed.”
— Rena Leizerman, Partner, The Law Firm for Truck Safety
View the decision here.
About The Law Firm for Truck Safety
The Law Firm for Truck Safety is a national practice dedicated exclusively to representing victims of truck crashes and their families. Many of its attorneys are Board-Certified in Truck Accident Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Michael and Rena Leizerman authored Litigating Truck Accident Cases, a leading treatise on complex truck crash litigation. The firm has secured record verdicts and settlements nationwide and is dedicated to justice for victims of catastrophic truck crashes and to advancing safer practices and stronger accountability throughout the trucking industry.
