SCOTUS rules 9-0 truck broker can be sued after deadly crashes

I think it will definitely have an impact on crappy carriers and the brokers that use them. Will be interesting to see the long term ripples here.

 

Interesting in that case was the carrier had a conditional rating.

 

Moving forward with how vetting will have to change, I'm curious how many brokers would even request a copy of the CAP without just saying "sorry cant work with ya" essentially killing off those carriers. I'm gonna say zero now.

 

Always asked for one but it all depended on the violations written up.

 

While I like this ruling, let's not pop the champagne quite yet. All they've said is the case can continue in the lower court, not that they will be successful.

"Importantly, the Court’s decision today should not be read to mean that brokers will routinely be subject to state tort liability in the wake of truck accidents." Kavanaugh gave brokers a wide gap here. Plaintiffs will have to prove negligence, which is an uphill fight.

"The brokers and their amici raise serious concerns about the repercussions of state tort liability against brokers, and they may of course (among other possibilities) ask Congress and the President to change federal law."

It wouldn't take much convincing to induce the current administration to act, especially since they filled an amicus brief in support of brokers.

 

The questions are "what constitutes acceptable due diligence?" and "is the hiring of the contractor a proximate cause?". Not to mention that this only applies to state courts, who have a cornucopia of differing standards for enforcing vicarious liability on employers of independent contractors.

Is having a 'satisfactory' SAFER rating enough? An OOS rate below the national average? Crashes per million miles? Can the broker just make a carrier self certify the driver meets certain criteria? Would showing the safe conclusion of loads by similar carriers be an adequate defense? There's a lot left to play out before this becomes a reliable avenue to hold brokers accountable.