Last reviewed: July 2, 2026
What the Court held
A unanimous 2026 Supreme Court ruling, Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, held that the FAAAA preemption defense no longer bars safety-related negligent-selection claims against brokers of this type.
That does not mean every carrier-selection claim wins. It does mean the dispute can move into the ordinary negligence question: did the selecting party act with ordinary care under the circumstances, using the information available before the load moved?
What it did not settle
Montgomery did not create a single national checklist for carrier selection. It did not say every load requires the same review, the same threshold, or the same form of documentation. The operational standard is still developing, and courts will evaluate facts in context.
The holding should not be stated as applying to shippers. Shippers face analogous exposure arguments as the standard develops, and that uncertainty is the reason evidence posture matters. A company does not need to predict every future court's preferred carrier-selection rule to benefit from a clear record. It needs to show that it had a policy, applied the policy, escalated exceptions, and preserved the decision before the load moved.
Why contemporaneous proof wins across outcomes
Carrier safety data changes. Authority status, out-of-service rates, crash indicators, insurance-on-file signals, and inspection history can drift between onboarding and dispatch. A carrier approved months ago may present a different picture on the day a shipment is assigned.
Retrospective reconstruction is weaker than a dispatch-time file. It invites disputes about what the dispatcher saw, what policy existed, whether the process was standard, and whether the exception was conscious or improvised. A contemporaneous file answers those questions in a form that can be reviewed by counsel, compliance, customers, and underwriters.
The strongest practical defense is not a promise that a carrier was safe. It is a disciplined record that shows ordinary care: source data captured before dispatch, a versioned policy applied consistently, a human decision preserved, and any exception documented with a named approver and load-specific reason.
What industry counsel is advising
Public analyses following Montgomery have emphasized the need for documented carrier-selection procedures, consistent application, and careful recordkeeping. The exact phrasing varies, but the operational theme is consistent: brokers should be ready to show what they checked and why they selected the carrier.
That is the gap DispatchDiligence is built around. The product does not approve carriers, decide legal reasonableness, or promise an outcome. It creates the record: the policy, the source snapshot, the decision, the exception path, and the evidence integrity layer.
Why the file matters
A carrier-selection file is useful because it is narrow. It is not a general dashboard, a marketing promise, or a post-loss memo. It is tied to one load and one decision. It shows what public data was available, which customer policy was applied, what result followed, who reviewed the decision, and when the record was sealed.
That structure helps skeptical readers. A dispatcher can explain what happened. A compliance manager can audit whether the policy was followed. Counsel can evaluate the contemporaneous record instead of piecing together a story years later. A shipper can see that the broker's diligence process is not informal or invisible.