Montgomery v. Caribe Transport Ii, LLC - Annotated Opinion

 Montgomery argues that even if the FAAAA otherwise preempts his negligent-hiring claim against C.H. Robinson, the safety exception saves it. We agree.²

 Recall the relevant text: The preemption provision “shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.” §14501(c)(2)(A). All agree that common-law duties and standards of care form part of a State’s authority to regulate safety. Tr. of Oral Arg. 52, 61; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20–22; see Kurns v. Railroad Friction Products Corp., 565 U. S. 625, 637  (2012) (state common-law duties and standards of care are “designed to be . . . a potent method of governing conduct and controlling policy” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Negligent-hiring claims impose a duty of reasonable care in employing a contractor for work carrying a risk of physical harm. See Restatement (Second) of Torts §411 (1964).

 The preemption question thus boils down to whether negligent-hiring claims of the type Montgomery presses are claims “with respect to motor vehicles.” §14501(c)(2)(A). We conclude that they are. The FAAAA supplies no definition of “with respect to,” so we give the phrase its ordinary meaning. Dictionaries define it as “referring to,” “concerning,” or “regarding.” Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide 853 (1999); Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary 1640 (1996). Following those definitions, we have construed the same phrase in the FAAAA’s preemption provision to mean “concern[s].” Dan’s City Used Cars, Inc. v. Pelkey, 569 U. S. 251, 261 (2013) (interpreting “with respect to the transportation of property”).³ And the FAAAA defines “motor vehicle” as “a vehicle, machine, tractor, trailer, or semitrailer propelled or drawn by mechanical power and used on a highway in transportation.” §13102(16). Putting the pieces together, a claim is “with respect to motor vehicles” if it “concerns” or “regards” the vehicles used in transportation.

 Applying that interpretation here is straightforward. Montgomery alleges that C.H. Robinson failed to exercise reasonable care when it hired Caribe Transport, which had a subpar safety rating from federal regulators, to transport goods via truck. Based on that safety rating, Montgomery  claims that C.H. Robinson knew (or should have known) that choosing Caribe Transport to move goods was reasonably likely to cause an accident. Requiring C.H. Robinson to exercise ordinary care in selecting a carrier therefore “concerns” motor vehicles—most obviously, the trucks that will transport the goods. So Montgomery’s negligent-hiring claim falls within the FAAAA’s safety exception, which saves it from preemption.

 C.H. Robinson, joined in part by the United States, raises various counterarguments. None succeed.

 C.H. Robinson and the United States contend that construing the safety exception as Montgomery requests would swallow the FAAAA’s express preemption provision whole. In other words, everything that Congress preempted would also qualify for the safety exception. Not so. Recall that the express preemption provision applies to laws and regulations “related to a price, route, or service of ” motor carriers or brokers “with respect to the transportation of property.” §14501(c)(1). The safety exception saves only a subset of preempted claims: those involving regulations concerning motor vehicle safety. §14501(c)(2)(A). One can imagine many state laws that are related to motor carrier prices, routes, and services—such as how much a carrier may charge or which highways it may traverse—that have no relationship to safety.

 C.H. Robinson also argues that Montgomery’s interpretation of the safety exception creates surplusage. In addition to preserving a State’s regulatory authority with respect to motor vehicles, the FAAAA also preserves state authority to impose route controls based on the size or weight of the vehicle or the hazardous nature of the cargo. Ibid. If Montgomery’s interpretation were adopted, the argument goes, these carveouts would be redundant because they also speak to safety. But the surplusage exists whether the  disputed phrase “with respect to motor vehicles” is defined narrowly or broadly, because any overlap comes from the reference to a State’s regulatory authority over “safety.” In any event, the provisions can be harmonized: A State’s choice to impose route controls or weight limits may serve ends other than safety, such as guarding against highway wear and tear.

 Finally, C.H. Robinson and the United States assert that interpreting the safety exception to cover brokers would create an anomaly with subsection (b) of the FAAAA. That section preempts state regulation of “intrastate” rates, routes, or services “of any freight forwarder or broker.” §14501(b)(1). Unlike subsection (c), subsection (b) does not contain a safety exception. Why, respondents ask, would Congress completely preempt state regulation of brokers for intrastate rates, routes, and services while only partially preempting state regulation of brokers for interstate rates, routes, and services?⁴ To avoid this anomaly, they argue, we should interpret subsection (c)’s safety exception to exclude brokers. Then, States could not impose either interstate or intrastate safety regulations on them.

 We’ll grant respondents this: It is not obvious why Congress included a safety exception in (c) but not in (b). But it would be even odder to say that the alleged tort—the negligent hiring of an unsafe motor carrier whose truck caused injury—is not an exercise of “the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.” §14501(c)(2)(A). The text of subsection (c)(2)(A) controls. Better to live with the mystery than to rewrite the statute.

 Brokers are intermediaries between shippers and trucking companies. Shippers contract with brokers, and brokers then select motor carriers (that is, trucking companies) to transport the shippers’ goods. The trucking companies own or lease the trucks and hire the drivers.

 When truck accidents occur, an injured party will sometimes bring a state tort suit against a trucking company that, for example, maintained an unsafe truck or hired or employed an at-fault driver. All parties here agree  that those suits against trucking companies are not preempted and thus are permitted under the FAA Authorization Act. The question is whether state tort suits against the upstream brokers who select the trucking companies are also permitted.

 Under the text of the Act, that question ultimately boils down to whether a state tort claim against a broker for negligently arranging unsafe truck transportation is a claim “with respect to motor vehicles.” 49 U. S. C. §14501(c)(2)(A). If yes, state tort suits against brokers are permitted. If no, state tort suits are preempted.

 The answer depends on how expansively to read the key statutory phrase “with respect to motor vehicles.” That inquiry is complicated because the phrase “with respect to”—like similar statutory phrases such as “related to” or “relating to”—is a somewhat elastic phrase whose breadth is determined by context. See United States v. Miller, 604 U. S. 518, 532–533 (2025); Dubin v. United States, 599 U. S. 110, 118–119 (2023); Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP v. Appling, 584 U. S. 709, 717 (2018); California Div. of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Dillingham Constr., N. A., Inc., 519 U. S. 316, 335 (1997) (Scalia, J., concurring) (“But applying the ‘relate to’ provision according to its terms was a project doomed to failure, since, as many a curbstone philosopher has observed, everything is related to everything else”).

 Here, the brokers do not own or lease the vehicles or hire the drivers. But they do select the trucking companies. Does the statutory phrase “with respect to motor vehicles” extend so broadly as to encompass the brokers’ activities? To answer that question and draw the appropriate line, we must examine the relevant statutory context, including surrounding statutory provisions.

 The contextual considerations here point in different directions. In favor of the brokers are two other provisions  of the Act: the mandatory-insurance provision and the intrastate preemption provision.

 First, the Act mandates a minimum level of insurance coverage for trucking companies—but not for brokers. 49 U. S. C. §§13906(a)(1), (b)(2)(A). That coverage ensures that trucking companies can pay when they are held liable for truck accidents. The dichotomy between trucking companies and brokers suggests (at least to some extent) that Congress did not anticipate state tort suits against brokers for negligent selection. Otherwise, Congress presumably would have mandated insurance coverage for brokers as well.

 Second, all agree that the Act as amended does not permit state tort suits against brokers for arranging intrastate transportation. But plaintiff here is arguing that the statute allows state tort suits against brokers for arranging interstate transportation. As a matter of ordinary preemption doctrine, which is rooted in federalism principles, that seems exactly backwards: Why would Congress permit state tort suits against brokers for arranging interstate trips but preempt state tort suits against brokers for arranging intrastate trips? Plaintiff has no good answer to that question. So as plaintiff ’s counsel forthrightly acknowledged at oral argument, a ruling in plaintiff ’s favor would create a substantial anomaly. Tr. of Oral Arg. 7–8, 25.

 For their part, the brokers seize on that rather glaring hole in plaintiff ’s argument. The brokers note that there would be no anomaly if, as they argue, all state tort suits against brokers for negligent selection were preempted. Good point.

 So those two contextual considerations favor the brokers and point toward a narrower construction of “with respect to motor vehicles” such that state tort suits against brokers would be preempted. But other contextual points decisively tilt in the opposite direction and point toward a broader  construction of “with respect to motor vehicles” such that state tort suits against brokers would be permitted.

 Most important is the overall structure of the safety regime for the trucking industry. Enacted in 1994, the FAA Authorization Act pursued economic deregulation of the industry. But the Act largely left intact the extant system of safety regulation, including state tort suits. See 49 U. S. C. §14501(c)(2)(A). The Act did not preempt state tort suits against trucking companies for truck accidents. And the negligent-hiring tort against brokers, like the negligence tort against trucking companies, exists to keep unsafe trucks and unsafe drivers off America’s highways. Given that Congress in the FAA Authorization Act sought economic deregulation—not safety deregulation—it is hard to read the statute as written and conclude that Congress subtly sliced and diced state tort law so that trucking companies would be subject to state tort suits for accidents, but brokers would operate free of any such tort liability.

 The brokers’ preemption argument also lies in some tension with the absence of meaningful safety-related regulation of brokers at the federal level. In particular, federal law does not require brokers to take substantial steps to ensure that they select safe trucking companies. Congress’s “regulation of brokers instead seems to address the financial aspects of broker services, not safety.” Ye, 74 F. 4th, at 463. And the relevant regulatory agency, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, requires brokers to select a federally registered carrier but does not otherwise “impos[e ] safety standards on broker hiring.” Ibid. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 74–75, 90; Brief for Institute for Safer Trucking as Amicus Curiae 14–17.

 The lack of meaningful federal safety regulation of brokers’ selection of carriers tends to support plaintiff ’s argument here because it is doubtful that Congress, through such indirect language in an economic- deregulation statute, would allow brokers to operate in a black hole with no meaningful safety-related regulation.

 And that contextual point matters because, as Congress well understood, truck safety is a matter of life and death. In 2022 in the United States, about 500,000 reported truck accidents resulted in about 5,000 deaths and 114,000 injuries. U. S. Dept. of Transp., Fed. Motor Carrier Safety Admin., Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts 2022, p. 45 (2025). Not all truck accidents can be prevented. But some can. Some carriers are known to be less safe; some truck drivers are known to be unfit.

 It is true, as the brokers emphasize, that trucking companies are in the best position to monitor their own trucks and drivers. By contrast, brokers may not always (or even often) be in a good position to objectively assess the relative safety of different trucking companies. See Brief for Transportation Intermediaries Association, Inc. as Amicus Curiae 20–28. That said, brokers may sometimes become aware that a particular carrier operates unsafe trucks or hires unfit drivers. And if brokers can be “held liable for disregarding poor safety records, they have a strong incentive to do business only with safe and reliable motor carriers.” Brief for the State of Ohio, 28 Other States, and the District of Columbia as Amici Curiae 18.

 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. As even plaintiff ’s counsel stressed, brokers should be able to successfully defend against state tort suits if the brokers have acted reasonably and arranged transportation with reputable trucking companies. Tr. of Oral Arg. 27–29. In plaintiff ’s counsel’s words, the brokers “just have to hire carriers that actually have a reasonable policy,” and “the broker is not going to have a problem if it’s asking the hard questions of the carrier.” Id., at 42, 45. In addition, the proximate-cause requirement in typical state tort law  should help protect brokers from excessive liability. Id., at 25.

 That said, the brokers rightly caution against naiveté. In the real world, as the brokers forcefully respond, state tort law can be unpredictable, and the costs to brokers of litigation and insurance may be significant even when brokers prevail in lawsuits. Moreover, the costs of litigation and insurance, as well as the costs of brokers’ conducting more substantial inquiries into trucking companies, will cascade through the economy and be paid in part by American consumers in the form of higher prices. See Brief for Chamber of Commerce et al. as Amici Curiae 25–34; Brief for National Association of Manufacturers as Amicus Curiae 15. The concerns expressed by the brokers are legitimate and weighty. But those countervailing points ultimately do not carry the day in determining how broadly to construe the vague “with respect to motor vehicles” language in this Act.