The freight brokerage industry is entering a new era. Since the Supreme Court's decision in Montgomery, my phone and email have been nonstop with brokers, shippers, insurers, and transportation attorneys all asking the same question: What is now considered the industry standard for vetting a carrier? The question is no longer whether brokers have responsibilities when selecting carriers. The question is what courts, juries, insurers, and the industry itself will consider reasonable in a modern transportation environment where enormous amounts of safety data are publicly available.
The reality is that most brokers are already doing a very good job. Many of today's sophisticated brokers have evolved far beyond simply checking FMCSA authority and insurance. They utilize carrier onboarding teams, continuous monitoring platforms, insurance verification tools, inspection analysis, fraud prevention controls, and internal escalation procedures that did not exist at scale even a decade ago.
In my work reviewing broker operations and carrier selection practices across the industry, I regularly see brokers implementing meaningful and defensible vetting procedures that demonstrate just how much the industry has matured. But there remains a very small segment of the market still operating under an outdated philosophy: if the carrier has active FMCSA authority and insurance, the load can move.
That approach is out of date and difficult to defend. One of the biggest misconceptions in transportation litigation is the belief that FMCSA authority somehow represents a government safety endorsement. It does not. Operating authority simply means a carrier is authorized to operate in interstate commerce.
It does not mean the carrier has acceptable inspection history, strong safety management controls, reasonable out of service percentages, or a satisfactory operational profile. Yet in negligent selection cases across the country, a handful of brokers still defend claims by arguing they relied primarily on authority status without meaningfully evaluating available DOT safety data.
That becomes problematic when publicly available information reveals warning signs that were either ignored or never reviewed at all. Today, brokers have access to unprecedented amounts of operational and safety information through FMCSA databases, CSA scores, inspection histories, crash indicators, insurance monitoring systems, and third-party risk platforms.
Plaintiffs' attorneys know this. Courts know this. Insurers know this. And increasingly, juries understand it as well. In expert witness work involving catastrophic crashes, a recurring issue emerges repeatedly: many brokers already conduct thorough vetting procedures.
However, the industry is still evolving, and there is a need for clarity on what constitutes a reasonable standard of care. As the industry continues to mature, we can expect to see more sophisticated carrier vetting practices and greater accountability among brokers.
The industry is rapidly evolving, and courts are taking notice.
