Uber Freight Accident Liability: Suing a Digital Freight Broker After a Truck Crash
- Jun 24
- 15 min read
Last Reviewed: June 24, 2026
Publisher: PI Law News
Author: Peter Geisheker
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or medical advice. If you have been injured in a truck accident, consult a licensed attorney in your state and seek care from a qualified medical provider.
Uber Freight accident liability is now a live claim nationwide: as a licensed digital freight broker, Uber Freight can be sued for negligently selecting an unsafe motor carrier whose truck injures you. On May 14, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC that the federal FAAAA does not shield brokers from state negligent-selection claims, because the statute's safety exception preserves them. Brokers, including app-based platforms, owe ordinary care when choosing the carriers that move freight on public roads.
Key Facts at a Glance
On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court held 9-0 in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC that negligent-selection claims against freight brokers are not preempted by federal law.
The decision turns on the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c), whose safety exception in subsection (c)(2)(A) preserves a state's authority to regulate safety with respect to motor vehicles.
Roughly 28,000 freight brokers arrange about one-third of all U.S. freight among more than 780,000 motor carriers, according to the Court's opinion.
In Montgomery, the carrier C.H. Robinson selected carried a federal “conditional” safety rating with documented driver-qualification deficiencies before the crash that cost Shawn Montgomery his leg.
Carrier safety data brokers can check is public through the FMCSA SAFER system and the Safety Measurement System.
Freight brokers must hold FMCSA broker authority and operate under 49 CFR Part 371, but federal law sets no minimum liability insurance for brokers the way it does for carriers.
In 2023, 4,354 people died in large truck crashes and 65% of them were occupants of passenger vehicles, per IIHS Fatality Facts.
If a truck booked through Uber Freight or any broker injured you, the broker's defense team is already preparing. Get a free case evaluation before you talk to any insurer.
When a tractor-trailer crashes into you, the driver and the trucking company are the obvious defendants. But behind most loads sits another business you never see: the freight broker that found the carrier and booked the load. For years, brokers, including digital platforms like Uber Freight, argued that federal law made them untouchable when one of their carriers killed or maimed someone. As of May 2026, that argument is dead.
This guide explains how digital freight brokers work, why you can now sue one after a truck accident, what the Supreme Court actually decided in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport, and how to build a negligent-selection claim against a broker. It is the companion to our broader guide on broker and shipper liability, focused specifically on the digital-brokerage model and the new nationwide rule.
Every legal point below is tied to a primary source: the Supreme Court opinion, the federal statute, the circuit decisions it resolved, and FMCSA safety data. You can verify each one yourself.
Roughly 28,000 freight brokers arrange about a third of all U.S. freight among more than 780,000 motor carriers. Until May 2026, most could disclaim responsibility for the carriers they put on the road.
In this article:
What is a digital freight broker like Uber Freight?
Can you sue Uber Freight after a truck accident?
What did the Supreme Court decide in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport?
What is FAAAA preemption and the safety exception?
How did the circuit split shake out before and after Montgomery?
What is negligent carrier selection?
Does a broker's algorithm change the liability analysis?
What evidence proves a broker selected an unsafe carrier?
Who else can be liable in an Uber Freight truck accident?
What is an Uber Freight accident claim worth?
What should you do after a broker-arranged truck accident?
Frequently asked questions
What Is a Digital Freight Broker Like Uber Freight?
A digital freight broker is a federally licensed middleman that uses an app and matching algorithm to connect shippers who have goods with motor carriers who haul them. Uber Freight is the best-known example: a shipper posts a load, the platform prices it and offers it to carriers, and a carrier books it, often in seconds, without a human broker ever speaking to the driver.
The key legal fact is that a digital platform like this operates under the same FMCSA broker authority as a traditional broker. It does not own the trucks or employ the drivers; it arranges the transportation and keeps the margin between what the shipper pays and what the carrier is paid. That arrangement is exactly what the law calls brokering, and it is what creates the duty at the center of a negligent-selection claim.
Because the broker chooses, or its algorithm chooses, which carrier gets the load, the broker is in a position to keep an unsafe carrier off the road or to put it there. Federal regulations governing brokers appear in 49 CFR Part 371, and the carrier safety records a broker can consult are public, a point that becomes decisive in litigation.
It is worth separating the broker from two roles people often confuse it with. A broker is not the motor carrier, which owns the truck, employs the driver, and carries the primary insurance; and it is not the shipper, which owns the goods. The broker sits between them, and its single most consequential act is choosing which carrier hauls the load. That one decision is the hinge on which a negligent-selection claim turns.
Can You Sue Uber Freight After a Truck Accident?
Yes. After the Supreme Court's May 2026 decision, you can sue a digital freight broker such as Uber Freight in state court for negligently selecting an unsafe carrier whose truck injured you, and the broker can no longer have that claim dismissed on federal-preemption grounds before a jury hears it.
The claim is called negligent selection or negligent hiring. It does not make the broker automatically responsible for every crash. You must show the broker failed to use ordinary care in choosing the carrier, for example by booking a carrier with a poor safety record it knew about or could have found in public FMCSA data. We explain the related employer-liability doctrine in our guide to respondeat superior in trucking.
Uber Freight is not the only digital broker exposed. The same rule reaches C.H. Robinson, TQL, Convoy-style marketplaces, and any third-party logistics provider or freight forwarder that selects carriers. If a platform picked the carrier and had access to the safety data, it can be named.
The Supreme Court did not say brokers are automatically liable. It said brokers no longer get a free pass: if a broker disregards a carrier's poor safety record, an injured person can take that claim to a jury.
What Did the Supreme Court Decide in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport?
In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, No. 24-1238, decided May 14, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the FAAAA does not preempt a state-law negligent-hiring claim against a freight broker, because the statute's safety exception saves it. Justice Barrett wrote the opinion; Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Alito, concurred. You can read it at the Supreme Court or via Cornell's Legal Information Institute.
The facts were stark. Shawn Montgomery was severely injured, losing a leg, when a tractor-trailer hauling a load arranged by broker C.H. Robinson struck his vehicle in Illinois. Montgomery alleged the broker knew or should have known the carrier, Caribe Transport II, had a “conditional” federal safety rating and a history of driver-qualification problems, yet booked it anyway. The Seventh Circuit had thrown the claim out on preemption; the Supreme Court reversed.
The holding is narrow and powerful: requiring a broker to use ordinary care when selecting a carrier is an exercise of a state's safety regulatory authority with respect to motor vehicles, so it survives federal preemption. Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence noted the logic reaches third-party logistics providers, freight forwarders, and digital platforms, not just traditional brokers, which is why it matters directly to Uber Freight.
What happens next is just as important as the holding. The Court did not declare C.H. Robinson liable; it reversed the dismissal and sent the case back so a jury can decide whether the broker actually breached its duty. That is the new posture everywhere: the preemption shortcut is gone, and broker liability is now decided on the facts of carrier selection rather than thrown out at the courthouse door.
Truck safety is a matter of life and death. 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. That principle, from the concurrence, is the practical heart of the ruling.
What Is FAAAA Preemption and the Safety Exception?
The Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994, codified at 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c), bars states from enforcing laws “related to a price, route, or service” of a motor carrier, broker, or freight forwarder. Congress passed it to deregulate the industry and prevent a patchwork of state economic rules.
Subsection (c)(1) is the preemption clause; subsection (c)(2)(A) is the safety exception, which preserves “the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.” The entire fight in Montgomery was whether a negligent-selection claim against a broker fits inside that safety exception. The Court held that it does.
One practical wrinkle the concurrence flagged: federal law sets minimum liability insurance for carriers under 49 U.S.C. § 13906, and for carriers under 49 CFR Part 387, but imposes no equivalent minimum on brokers. That gap shapes how victims must pursue and collect on a broker claim.
How Did the Circuit Split Shake Out Before and After Montgomery?
Before May 2026, whether you could sue a broker depended on which federal circuit you were in. Montgomery erased that geography problem and made one rule national. The table below maps the split the Court resolved.
Court | Pre-Montgomery position | Key case | Effect of Montgomery |
9th Circuit | Claims allowed; safety exception applies | Affirmed in substance | |
6th Circuit | Claims allowed; safety exception applies | Affirmed in substance | |
7th Circuit | Claims preempted; no safety exception | Overruled | |
11th Circuit | Claims preempted; no safety exception | Overruled | |
All 50 states | Inconsistent by circuit | Uniform rule: claims allowed |
The takeaway for victims is simple. Where you live no longer decides whether a broker can hide behind preemption. The question everywhere is now the merits: did the broker use ordinary care in choosing the carrier?
What Is Negligent Carrier Selection?
Negligent carrier selection is a broker's failure to use reasonable care when choosing the motor carrier that hauls a load. The duty has existed under common law for generations; Montgomery simply confirmed that federal law does not block it.
To prove it, an injured plaintiff generally must show the broker owed a duty of reasonable care, breached it by selecting a carrier a careful broker would have rejected, and that the breach caused the crash and the injuries. The most common breach is ignoring red flags in public safety data, the kind of conditional safety rating or pattern of violations that a basic check would have surfaced. The standard is not perfection but reasonableness: a broker is judged on what a careful broker would have done with the information available at the time it booked the load.
This is where the FMCSA's public tools matter. A broker can check a carrier's authority, insurance, crash history, and Safety Measurement System scores through SAFER. A broker that books the cheapest available truck without looking, then puts an unsafe carrier on the road, is the exact target of a negligent-selection claim. Our guide to the FMCSA CSA program explains how those scores are built.
Does a Broker's Algorithm Change the Liability Analysis?
A digital broker's algorithm does not lower its duty of care, and in some ways it raises the stakes. Automating carrier matching does not delegate away the legal responsibility to select carriers reasonably; if anything, a platform that can instantly query a carrier's authority and safety scores has fewer excuses for missing red flags.
The central question becomes how the platform's matching logic treats safety data. If the algorithm screens out carriers with poor SMS scores, revoked authority, or inadequate insurance, that is evidence of reasonable care. If it ranks loads to carriers purely by price, speed, or availability while ignoring available safety signals, that design choice can itself be the breach.
Discovery in a digital-broker case therefore reaches the system, not just a file. Plaintiffs can seek the platform's carrier-vetting criteria, the data fields it pulls at booking, the thresholds it uses to approve or exclude carriers, and the audit trail showing what the system knew about the carrier when it booked the load. That technical record is often more damaging to a digital broker than a paper file is to a traditional one.
There is also a documentation paradox that helps victims. A platform that automates carrier matching necessarily logs its decisions, so a digital broker that claims it vetted a carrier will have to produce the data trail proving it, and a broker that cannot show its system checked safety scores has effectively admitted it did not. The same automation that lets a platform book a load in seconds creates a permanent record of exactly what it weighed when it did.
What Evidence Proves a Broker Selected an Unsafe Carrier?
The evidence in a broker negligent-selection case is largely documentary and digital, and much of it must be preserved before it is overwritten or routinely purged. The goal is to show what the broker knew, or could easily have known, about the carrier at the moment it booked the load.
The carrier's FMCSA safety profile at the time of booking, including authority status, insurance, crash and inspection history, and SMS scores.
The broker's carrier-vetting policy and the records showing whether it was followed for this load.
The booking and platform data, including the matching criteria, the data the system pulled, and the load confirmation.
Communications between the broker, shipper, and carrier about the load and any safety concerns.
The carrier's contract and insurance with the broker, which frames coverage and indemnity.
Because platform logs and carrier records can disappear, a preservation, or spoliation, letter must go out fast. See our 2026 guide to preserving evidence after a truck accident for the steps that lock this evidence in place.
Who Else Can Be Liable in an Uber Freight Truck Accident?
The broker is rarely the only defendant. A serious truck-accident case usually names every party whose negligence contributed and every layer of insurance that can pay, because a broker claim alone may not reach the full value of a catastrophic injury.
The motor carrier, which employs the driver and carries the primary liability coverage required by 49 CFR Part 387.
The truck driver, for the negligence that directly caused the crash.
The freight broker or platform, for negligent carrier selection under the new Montgomery rule.
The shipper, which was never preempted and can be liable for its own carrier-selection or loading decisions.
A maintenance vendor or manufacturer, where a mechanical failure contributed.
Identifying every defendant matters because the broker's coverage may be thin, while the carrier's policy and any excess layers are where the real money sits. Our guide to insurance towers in large truck crashes explains how those layers stack.
What Is an Uber Freight Accident Claim Worth?
An Uber Freight or digital-broker accident claim is worth the full measure of the victim's losses, and because truck crashes are catastrophic, these claims sit at the high end of the range. There is no single average; value turns on injury severity, the layers of available insurance, the strength of the liability evidence against each defendant, and your state's rules.
Recoverable damages typically include current and future medical care, lost wages and lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, disfigurement, and, in a fatal crash, wrongful-death damages. The broker claim is often what unlocks an additional defendant and additional coverage when the carrier is underinsured or insolvent. For the methodology, see our explainer on how multi-million-dollar truck accident settlements are calculated.
Practical collection is the catch. Because federal law sets no minimum insurance for brokers, a broker's own coverage for a negligent-selection judgment varies widely, which is exactly why pursuing the carrier, shipper, and every insurance layer in parallel is essential. A broker claim is most valuable not as a standalone target but as an added defendant that widens the pool of available coverage when the carrier alone cannot make a catastrophically injured victim whole. Discuss your case at no cost so no available source of recovery is left on the table.
What Should You Do After a Broker-Arranged Truck Accident?
After a truck accident, your priority is medical care, but the early steps also protect a possible broker claim. Identifying the broker behind the load is something victims rarely think to do, and it is often where significant additional recovery lives.
Get emergency medical care and follow every referral; truck-crash injuries can be internal and delayed.
Document the truck and carrier, including the DOT and MC numbers on the cab, which let counsel trace the carrier and the broker.
Preserve evidence quickly, and have a lawyer send spoliation letters to the carrier and the broker for booking, platform, and ELD data.
Do not give any insurer a recorded statement and do not accept an early settlement before your injuries are fully evaluated.
Hire a commercial-truck accident attorney who understands broker liability and the post-Montgomery rule, because deadlines run and digital evidence is perishable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you sue Uber Freight for a truck accident?
Yes. As a licensed digital freight broker, Uber Freight can be sued in state court for negligently selecting an unsafe motor carrier whose truck injured you. After the Supreme Court's May 2026 decision, brokers can no longer have these negligent-selection claims dismissed on federal-preemption grounds. You still must prove the broker failed to use ordinary care in choosing the carrier.
Is a freight broker liable for a truck accident?
A freight broker is not automatically liable, but it can be held liable for negligent carrier selection if it chose a carrier a reasonable broker would have rejected, such as one with a poor public safety record. The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport that federal law does not block these claims. Speak with a personal injury attorney to evaluate the broker's role.
What did the Supreme Court rule about freight brokers?
On May 14, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC that the FAAAA does not preempt state negligent-hiring claims against freight brokers, because the statute's safety exception preserves them. The ruling reversed the Seventh Circuit and applies nationwide.
What is negligent carrier selection?
Negligent carrier selection, also called negligent hiring, is a broker's failure to use reasonable care when choosing the trucking company that hauls a load. A plaintiff must show the broker owed a duty of care, breached it by selecting an unfit carrier, and that the breach caused the crash. Ignoring a carrier's poor FMCSA safety record is the classic breach.
What is the FAAAA?
The Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994, codified at 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c), bars states from enforcing laws related to the price, route, or service of a motor carrier, broker, or freight forwarder. Its safety exception preserves state authority to regulate safety with respect to motor vehicles, which is what saves negligent-selection claims.
Does Uber Freight carry insurance for accidents?
Federal law sets minimum liability insurance for motor carriers under 49 U.S.C. § 13906, but it sets no equivalent minimum for brokers. A digital broker's coverage for a negligent-selection judgment varies, which is why victims pursue the carrier, shipper, and every insurance layer alongside the broker.
How do I prove a broker selected an unsafe carrier?
You prove it with the carrier's FMCSA safety profile at the time of booking, the broker's vetting policy and records, the platform's booking and matching data, and communications about the load. Much of this is available through FMCSA SAFER, but the broker's internal records must be preserved quickly before they are purged.
Is a digital broker treated differently from a traditional broker?
No. A digital platform such as Uber Freight operates under the same FMCSA broker authority as a traditional broker and owes the same duty of care. Its matching algorithm does not reduce that duty; a platform that can instantly check safety data has fewer excuses for booking an unsafe carrier.
How long do I have to sue a freight broker after a truck accident?
The deadline is set by your state's statute of limitations, commonly two to three years for personal injury, and claims involving government parties can require notice within months. Because broker evidence is digital and perishable, you should contact us for a free consultation right away to preserve it and protect your deadline.
Should You Talk to a Lawyer About an Uber Freight or Broker Claim?
Yes, and quickly. The Supreme Court has just removed the shield that digital freight brokers used for years to avoid responsibility for the carriers they put on the road. That makes the broker a real, named defendant in a serious truck-accident case, and it can open a source of recovery that did not exist a few months ago. But the window to preserve the booking and platform data that proves the claim is short.
If a truck booked through Uber Freight or any freight broker injured you or killed someone you love, do not assume the carrier's policy is the only money available. Get a free case evaluation and connect with a truck accident lawyer who understands broker liability and the post-Montgomery rule.
References and Sources
Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC — Cornell Legal Information Institute
49 U.S.C. § 14501 — FAAAA preemption and safety exception (Cornell LII)
49 U.S.C. § 13906 — Minimum financial responsibility for motor carriers (Cornell LII)
49 CFR Part 387 — Minimum Levels of Financial Responsibility (eCFR)
Miller v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 976 F.3d 1016 (9th Cir. 2020)
Cox v. Total Quality Logistics, Inc., 142 F.4th 847 (6th Cir. 2025)
Ye v. GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc., 74 F.4th 453 (7th Cir. 2023)
Aspen American Ins. Co. v. Landstar Ranger, Inc., 65 F.4th 1261 (11th Cir. 2023)
Editorial Standards and Review
This article was researched, written, and published by PI Law News and last reviewed on June 23, 2026. Our editorial process traces every legal claim to a primary source, the Supreme Court's own opinion, the text of the federal statute and regulations, the circuit-court decisions the ruling resolved, and federal safety data from the FMCSA and IIHS, rather than to secondary summaries. Each factual claim carries an inline link so readers can verify it independently.
PI Law News follows a Zero-Hallucination Policy: we do not fabricate case outcomes, citations, statistics, or statute numbers, and any fact that cannot be verified against a primary source is omitted. This article is educational and does not constitute legal advice; for advice about your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.
