THE DAILY

Thursday, May 14, 2026

The five minutes that makes you the most informed person in freight today

Newsletter Brought to You By — Amazon Supply Chain Services

Discover how Amazon Supply Chain Services helps businesses streamline operations, reduce supply chain tradeoffs, and deliver more reliable customer experiences. Learn more

The Daily

Supreme Court rules 9-0 that freight brokers can be held liable for hiring bad carriers

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that freight brokers are not shielded from state-court liability when they negligently hire a carrier involved in a crash, a 9-0 decision that settles years of circuit conflict and immediately reshapes the legal risk calculus for every 3PL operating in the United States.

The case goes back to 2016, when a Caribe Transport II truck struck Shawn Montgomery, a driver parked on the side of the road, causing injuries that required the amputation of his leg. C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) had booked Caribe for the load. At issue was whether the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act’s safety exception, which allows state tort actions to proceed on safety grounds even where F4A otherwise bars state regulation of "price, route or service," extends to brokers under the phrase "with respect to motor vehicles." Courts had split on the question. Thursday, the Supreme Court ended the split.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion. "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," Barrett wrote. "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." After working through dictionary definitions of "with respect to" and the mechanics of F4A’s preemption clause, the court’s conclusion was unambiguous: negligent-hiring claims against brokers fall within the safety exception and are not preempted. The unanimous vote came earlier than most attorneys expected, with some having anticipated the decision wouldn’t drop until late June.

The practical impact is immediate. The case remands to the Seventh Circuit, where C.H. Robinson returns as a defendant in the underlying litigation. More broadly, every freight broker in the country now operates under a settled legal standard: state tort liability for negligent carrier selection is real, the circuit conflict is over, and the legal architecture that once gave brokers a preemption defense is gone. Brokers that hired carriers with subpar safety ratings, inadequate insurance, or spotty compliance records face a much cleaner path for plaintiffs than existed 24 hours ago.

So What? Every freight brokerage needs a carrier vetting protocol it can defend in a courtroom, starting today. The question is no longer whether state tort claims can reach brokers: they can. Brokers relying on minimal FMCSA safety-rating checks or informal approval processes need a documented, consistently applied vetting standard immediately. The cost of getting it wrong is now settled law.

Read the full story →

Top Stories

Hirschbach to deploy 500 autonomous trucks as long-haul driver preference shifts

Hirschbach Motor Lines signed a non-binding MOU last week to deploy 500 Aurora Driver-equipped trucks beginning in 2027, under a Driver-as-a-Service subscription model focused on high-volume Sun Belt routes between Houston, Dallas, El Paso, and Phoenix. CEO Richard Stocking was direct: "Autonomy isn’t just a business move, it’s a quality-of-life investment for our people. The Aurora Driver will handle the longer, less desirable routes, giving our drivers greater flexibility." The announcement tracks a structural reality the industry has been slow to confront: there is no driver shortage, but there is a long-haul preference problem. A 2024 National Academies study found no evidence of a chronic CDL-holder shortage. What exists instead is a 92.7% annualized turnover rate at large truckload carriers, driven by an industry that has consistently chosen to replace drivers rather than retain them, and by a workforce that no longer wants weeks away from home. The median age of a commercial truck driver is now 46. Experienced drivers with options are choosing regional; new entrants are choosing local.

So What? Shippers routing time-sensitive, temperature-controlled freight on transcontinental lanes should ask their carriers directly whether driver capacity is in place for those runs, or whether relays, autonomous partnerships, or intermodal are already factored in. Hirschbach made the calculation explicit. Others are running the same math.

Read the full story →

Texas AG probes five CDL schools for English-proficiency violations, warns CVS on supplier diversity

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched two parallel enforcement actions this week with direct implications for freight. On the driver side, his office opened an investigation into five CDL schools (EP Texas Trucking School, Trucker Certified LLC, Fast Track CDL LLC, CDLCALL.COM LLC, and Lindenwood Education System), alleging the schools may have helped non-English-speaking applicants obtain commercial licenses without meeting federal language requirements. The schools operate in El Paso, Odessa, San Antonio, Garland, and Arlington, feeding graduates into the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston freight corridors. Texas has issued 51,993 CDLs to non-domiciled drivers since 2015. On the supply chain side, Paxton sent a warning letter to CVS Health over its supplier diversity contracting program, giving CVS 14 days to report steps toward compliance. CVS operates more than 22 distribution centers and a 2,500-vehicle delivery fleet supporting 9,000-plus retail locations.

So What? Carriers hiring out of Texas markets should audit driver qualification files for English-proficiency documentation before school-level enforcement actions create carrier-level scrutiny. Shippers and 3PLs with CVS supplier relationships have 14 days to assess exposure before CVS’s compliance deadline.

Read the full story →

FedEx board approves Freight spinoff; FDXF listing set for June 1

FedEx Corp.’s board formally approved the spinoff of FedEx Freight Wednesday, with the separation set to conclude by June 1. FedEx will distribute 80.1% of FedEx Freight’s outstanding common stock to shareholders on a 1-for-2 basis: investors of record as of Friday receive one FDXF share for every two FDX shares held. FedEx retains a 19.9% stake it intends to dispose of within 24 months through debt repayment or dividend distributions. "Today’s announcement is an important step as we prepare for a seamless separation," said Brad Martin, executive chairman of FedEx’s board. FedEx Freight, the nation’s largest LTL carrier, generates approximately $9 billion in annual revenue from 40,000 employees, 365 terminals, and 30,000 vehicles.

So What? The June 1 investor day is the number that matters. Long-term revenue and margin commitments from a freshly independent LTL carrier will set the benchmark valuation for FDXF and the reference point for every LTL peer’s pricing and volume strategy heading into H2 2026.

Read the full story →

Sponsored By PCS

The Freight Is Moving. Find Out Where the Money Went. Operating costs hit $2.26 per mile in 2024 — the highest non-fuel cost ever recorded — and rates haven’t kept up. If your trucks are running but your margins aren’t growing, the problem isn’t effort. It’s visibility. This guide breaks down exactly where margin slips and what top-performing mid-market fleets are doing differently. Download the guide →

New Jersey revises independent contractor rule, removes most restrictive provisions

The New Jersey Department of Labor released a revised independent contractor rule last week that strips out its most contentious provision: language that would have made requiring compliance with laws and regulations evidence of employer control under the ABC test. Trucking-focused attorney Greg Feary of Scopelitis called the change "big." "The rules, regulations and laws are big in any industry that’s heavily regulated," Feary told FreightWaves. "Safety in trucking is heavily regulated, as well as federal leasing regulations." The revised rule also removes language that would have treated proprietary apps as evidence of employer control, and drops an expansive definition of a company’s "place of business" that could have swept in the cab of a truck. What remains is still among the most restrictive ABC tests in the country. The New Jersey Business & Industry Association has urged the legislature to void the regulations entirely, or use the 120-day review window to pursue statutory alternatives before the rule takes effect.

So What? Fleets with New Jersey IC driver arrangements got a meaningfully better rule than the original proposal, but the ABC test still narrows independent work significantly. Run a compliance review now and watch the 120-day legislative window. If the NJBIA gets its concurrent resolution, the rule could be voided before it takes effect.

Read the full story →

Sponsored Insight

From the Research Desk

What We’re Watching

▸ The Montgomery remand at the Seventh Circuit. C.H. Robinson returns to the underlying litigation now that the Supreme Court has settled the preemption question. Watch for plaintiff attorneys to move quickly on broker liability cases in state courts — the circuit conflict that had created jurisdictional uncertainty is over.

▸ FDXF investor day ahead of the June 1 listing. Long-term revenue and margin commitments from a freshly independent FedEx Freight will set the benchmark valuation for FDXF and the reference point for every LTL peer’s pricing and volume strategy in H2 2026. The first 30 days of trading will shape capital markets for the whole sector.

▸ New Jersey’s 120-day IC rule review window. The NJBIA is pushing the Assembly and Senate to void the regulations or pursue statutory alternatives before the rule takes effect. Carriers with New Jersey IC operations should track this — the outcome determines whether the revised rule stands or gets rewritten from scratch.

That’s your Daily for today. See you tomorrow.

Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here  |  Have a tip? Just reply to this email.

FreightWaves 405 Cherry St., Chattanooga TN 37402

Unsubscribe  |  Forward to a Friend  |  FreightWaves.com