The supreme court on Thursday allowed a man to sue a major logistics company after he lost part of his leg in a semi tractor-trailer crash, a decision that could have ripple effects across the trucking industry.
The US’s highest court ruled unanimously in favor of Shawn Montgomery, whose parked vehicle was hit by a speeding truck driver on an Illinois highway in 2017.
He says CH Robinson, the country’s largest freight broker, should be liable for its role in putting the driver on the road despite “serious red flags”.
His claim was backed by more than two dozen US states who said the case would help bolster safety in the industry that moves billions of tons of goods across billions of miles every year.
On the other side was the Trump administration and companies such as Amazon, which argued against exposing logistics companies to liability under a “patchwork” of state laws.
Montgomery’s attorneys say the trucker had been cited for careless driving in another crash months earlier, and the carrier that he worked for had been involved with at least three crashes in a span of about five months. His lawsuit said CH Robinson should share liability because it hired the carrier despite those problems.
The company argued that it relies on the federal government to license carriers, and being federally regulated means they cannot be sued under state law.
CH Robinson, based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, got the case tossed out in a ruling affirmed by a Chicago-based appeals court, but Montgomery appealed to the justices at the supreme court.
He successfully argued that even though federal law usually trumps state law, other courts have recognized an exception for safety issues.
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