$604 Million Verdict Tests Broker Liability After Supreme Court Ruling

C.H. Robinson said it will immediately appeal a $604 million verdict that’s being seen as significant following the U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport. 

A Texas jury found the megabroker, the trucking company it brokered freight to, and the driver of the truck negligent in a 2021 crash that killed three people.

According to the plaintiff’s attorneys’ firm, Arnold & Itkin, in March 2021, a tractor-trailer rig owned by motor carrier Lupus Superior plowed into stopped traffic on Interstate 20 in Mississippi, setting off a fiery six-vehicle pileup.

Jennifer Lipe, Benjamin Brewer, and Rhoderick Coleman were trapped in their vehicles and died in the flames. Rodney Hawkins and Gabrielle Broussard were injured in the crash.

According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, federal regulators had flagged Lupus Superior for unsafe driving before the crash, and the driver had informed both the carrier and C.H. Robinson that he was too sick to continue driving.

The jury found all three defendants negligent and held C.H. Robinson responsible for the largest share of the damage. The verdict is not a final adjudication of liability; it is advisory and subject to post-trial proceedings. C.H. Robinson has said it will appeal a final judgment.

Liability of Brokers and the Supreme Court

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport that federal law does not automatically shield freight brokers from state-law negligent hiring claims.

In that case, which also involved C.H. Robinson, the Court concluded that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) does not preempt those claims, allowing lawsuits against brokers to proceed under state negligence laws.

The decision did not determine whether C.H. Robinson or other brokers are liable in individual cases, but it cleared the way for juries to consider whether a broker acted negligently in selecting a motor carrier.

C.H. Robinson: ‘We Do Not Employ Drivers’

C.H. Robinson “strongly disagrees” with the verdict in the case, Lipe v. Lupus Superior, LLC, according to Chief Legal Officer Dorothy Capers, and plans to immediately appeal.

“We extend our deepest sympathies to everyone affected by this tragic accident. Every loss of life on our nation’s highways is one too many,” she said.

“C.H. Robinson should not be held liable and did not act negligently,” she said. “The carrier had safely delivered nearly 270 loads for our customers and held a Satisfactory FMCSA rating when we selected it. That rating remained Satisfactory following a federal review of this accident.

“The carrier is an independent motor carrier, and the driver worked for them. C.H. Robinson does not employ drivers.”

“Safety is core to how we operate and always has been. We go beyond federal requirements and apply multiple layers of safety and risk criteria that we continuously re-evaluate and strengthen. The shipments we arrange overwhelmingly move without incident, with one serious accident claim filed for every 500 million miles driven on our customers’ loads.”

“The extreme nature of this verdict means it is even more imperative that Congress and the Federal Government act with urgency to establish clear and proper accountabilities across the transportation industry that enhance highway safety and support the uninterrupted flow of goods across the United States.”

What the Jury Knew – and the Broker Didn’t

The Transportation Intermediaries Association, in a statement on LinkedIn, said Lupus Superior maintained a “Satisfactory” safety rating since 2014, which was reaffirmed by the FMCSA in 2021 and most recently this past April.

TIA, which has long argued that brokers should be able to rely on FMCSA’s safety ratings and has pushed regulators to provide additional safety data, said the “Satisfactory” rating “suggested adequate safety management controls were in place, yet in this case, the jury was given access to data regarding this particular carrier’s prior incident and safety record that is not available to the public, including brokers.”

Under federal law, TIA explained, a “Satisfactory” safety rating means that a motor carrier has adequate safety management controls in place and that those controls are functioning to ensure compliance with safety requirements.

Revamping the safety fitness determination process, as the safety ratings are known, has been on the FMCSA’s to-do list for some time.

The carrier at issue in the Lipe v. Lupus Superior case was reportedly above the intervention threshold in two Safety Measurement System (SMS) BASIC categories — criteria that would potentially place it among what the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration deems to be “high risk” motor carriers that are prioritized for investigation.

But this data is not available to the public, including brokers.

TIA has formally petitioned FMCSA to establish a clear motor carrier selection standard and to make the so-called “high-risk” carrier list publicly available. “In addition, raising the standards for entry into the industry — for both motor carriers and brokers — must be addressed without delay.”

The plaintiffs attorneys said the verdict is the first against C.H. Robinson since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport — another case involving C.H. Robinson — that freight brokers can be held accountable for hiring unsafe trucking companies.

‘A Fleet Under Strain’

One safety and compliance consultant and writer, who has been heavily involved in “chameleon carrier” cases, contends there were publicly available warning signs that brokers should consider as part of their carrier selection process.

Rob Carpenter, a former trucking executive who works for Trucksafe Consulting, explained in his Substack publication “The Tea” that a closer look at Lupus Superior’s recent violation history reveals “the ordinary grammar of a fleet under strain.

Many of the publicly available violations he reviewed occurred after the 2021 crash, but he argues they illustrate broader operational issues at the carrier: “speeding 11 to 14 over, three times since mid-2024; a seatbelt violation in December; tires leaking below half inflation pressure placed out of service, inoperative brake lamps placed out of service, a flat with fabric exposed placed out of service, and a run of ELD paperwork violations.”

This information, he said, is from publicly available records.

He also noted that public records show the carrier has experienced repeated authority revocations and reinstatements related to insurance filings.

“The docket history on MC 816979 shows 28 authority actions over 13 years, the bulk of them involuntary revocations followed by reinstatement, the churn signature of coverage lapsing and getting cured,” he said.

Screening for Double Brokering Doesn’t Equal Safety

According to Carpenter, C.H. Robinson vets its carriers through Highway.

“The identity-verification layer the industry added is real, and it matters for fraud,” Carpenter says, identifying problems such as double brokering.

“It does not answer the safety question, because it was never built to. A carrier can clear every identity check ever devised and still be a 23-truck operation with seven fatalities in its crash file, two alerting BASICs, and a $750,000 minimum filing from its seventh insurer in recent memory.

“Compliant is a status,” he said. “Safe is a pattern.”