CATASTROPHIC TRUCKING CASE REVIEW FOR PLAINTIFF LAWYERS
When the Trucking Policy Isn’t Enough, Investigate Who Selected the Carrier
A catastrophic trucking case may involve damages far beyond the motor carrier’s available insurance. When that happens, the investigation shouldn’t necessarily stop with the driver and carrier.
Defiance Injury Law works with plaintiff attorneys to evaluate potential claims involving freight brokers, logistics providers, freight platforms, shippers, and other entities involved in selecting or placing a motor carrier on the road.
Catastrophic Trucking • Wrongful Death • Negligent Carrier Selection • Broker Liability • Complex Litigation
Beyond the $1M Policy
When the trucking policy isn’t enough, find out who selected the carrier. Do not stop at the carrier policy. Find the broker. Find the data. Find the recovery path.
The Motor Carrier May Not Be the End of the Investigation
A fatal or life changing truck crash can produce medical costs, lost earnings, future care needs, and noneconomic harm that substantially exceed the carrier’s available coverage.
When the damages and insurance don’t align, plaintiff counsel may need to determine:
- Who arranged the load
- Who selected the motor carrier
- What information was available before selection
- Whether safety concerns should have prompted further review
- Whether corporate relationships extend beyond the named carrier
- Whether other entities exercised control over the transportation
A broker-liability investigation doesn’t assume that another company is responsible. It asks whether the facts, contracts, communications, safety information, and applicable law support looking further upstream.
Broker Negligent-Selection Claims After Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II
On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the state-law negligent-hiring claim at issue in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC wasn’t preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act.
The Court concluded that requiring a broker to exercise ordinary care when selecting a motor carrier concerns motor-vehicle safety and therefore falls within the FAAAA’s safety exception. The Court reversed the Seventh Circuit and sent the case back for further proceedings.
The decision is important, but it doesn’t make freight brokers automatically liable after a truck crash. It addressed federal preemption—not whether the broker was negligent, whether the selection caused the crash, or what damages may be recoverable.
Those questions remain dependent on:
- The applicable state law
- The broker’s conduct
- The carrier-selection process
- Information available before the load was assigned
- Causation
- Admissible evidence
- The specific facts of the collision
Defining the Broker’s Role
What Is a Freight Broker?
Federal regulations generally define a broker as a person or company that, for compensation, arranges or offers to arrange the transportation of property by an authorized motor carrier.
The legal role of a company depends on what it actually did, not only the name it used in contracts, emails, marketing materials, or load documents. A company may describe itself as a broker, logistics provider, freight platform, third-party logistics company, dispatcher, intermediary, or transportation provider.
A proper investigation should evaluate the company’s actual conduct, contractual obligations, communications, control, representations, and role in selecting the carrier.
Potential Parties
Who Put the Carrier on the Road?
Depending on the facts, the investigation may extend to:
Freight Brokers
Companies that arranged transportation and selected or offered the load to a motor carrier.
Logistics Companies
Entities that coordinated routing, scheduling, shipping requirements, carrier selection, or transportation management.
Freight Platforms
Technology companies or digital marketplaces that matched shipments with carriers or influenced how carriers were identified and approved.
Shippers and Intermediaries
Companies that may have selected, directed, approved, or retained entities involved in the transportation process.
Related Carrier Entities
Affiliated companies, common ownership structures, equipment owners, leasing companies, or entities operating under overlapping authority. The existence of an upstream party doesn’t establish liability. The question is whether the party owed and breached an applicable duty and whether that conduct contributed to the harm.
When to Request a Review
Broker-Liability Issues May Be Worth Investigating When:
- The crash caused death or catastrophic injury
- The known motor-carrier coverage is inadequate
- A broker, freight platform, or logistics company selected the carrier
- The carrier has a concerning inspection or crash history
- The carrier’s identity or ownership structure is unclear
- Multiple intermediaries appear in the load documents
- The carrier recently changed names, authority, or operating entities
- Available records raise questions about driver qualification or maintenance
- The broker’s onboarding and vetting process is unknown
- Preservation, filing, or discovery deadlines are approaching
Early review is important because load documents, communications, platform data, telematics, safety records, and corporate information can become harder to identify or preserve as time passes.
Experience Built for High-Stakes Litigation
Our attorneys bring experience across catastrophic injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice, trucking, broker liability, appellate advocacy, and complex civil litigation. Their prior work includes publicly reported verdicts and settlements involving serious injuries, fatalities, oilfield incidents, and commercial transportation claims.
*Some results were obtained by attorneys before joining Defiance Injury Law or while working as part of a broader litigation team.*
Defiance Injury Law Attorneys
Nick Andrews
Managing Partner
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A catastrophic case can expose an uncomfortable truth: the loss is devastating, the liability is clear, and the insurance is nowhere close to enough.
I understand the lawyer standing in that gap.
You have a client whose life has been permanently changed. You earned that client’s trust, and now you must explain why the available coverage may not pay for even a fraction of what was taken from them. You know the case demands more, but bringing in another firm means trusting someone with your client, your reputation, and a relationship you built.
As managing partner of Defiance Injury Law, I have built our firm for that moment.
We don’t accept the policy limits as the value of the case. We investigate why the coverage failed.
What risks were disclosed?
What coverage was requested?
What should the broker have recommended?
Were other policies, responsible parties, or sources of recovery overlooked?
When the insurance doesn’t match the loss, we find out who was responsible for the gap.
We also protect the relationship that came through the door. Referring lawyers are not an obstacle to work around. They are part of the team. Roles should be clear, communication should be direct, and the client should see lawyers working together instead of fighting over territory.
Catastrophic cases are too important for ego, guesswork, or a quick surrender to the policy limits. They require resources, pressure, and lawyers willing to keep digging after the easy answer runs out.
Policy limits should not define a case. A coverage gap may simply expose the next defendant.
Holly D. Brauchli
Attorney at Law
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Holly Brauchli brings a perspective that matters when a catastrophic injury case refuses to fit within the available insurance. Before representing injured people, she spent nearly a decade in civil defense litigation, ultimately becoming a shareholder at Bullivant Houser Bailey. She represented corporations, insurers, healthcare professionals, and other defendants in complex, high-stakes cases.
That experience taught Holly how defendants investigate claims, evaluate exposure, prepare experts, challenge causation and damages, and decide whether to settle or take a case to trial. Today, she uses that knowledge to anticipate defense strategies and build stronger cases for injured clients and their families.
Holly has secured significant results for plaintiffs, including a $4 million nursing home abuse settlement, a $2.5 million motor vehicle collision settlement, and a $2.6 million jury verdict for a client who suffered a concussion in a crash. She has taken and defended hundreds of depositions and worked extensively with medical, scientific, economic, and other expert witnesses.
Her background also shapes how she approaches cases where the loss is catastrophic but the available insurance appears inadequate. Holly does not assume the first policy limit defines the value of the case. She looks at the broader liability picture, the parties and decisions surrounding the loss, and whether additional avenues of recovery warrant investigation.
That approach aligns with Defiance Injury Law’s Beyond the $1 Million Policy initiative. When the damages justify a deeper investigation, the legal team should be prepared to ask whether the obvious defendant is the only defendant and whether the available coverage tells the whole story.
At Defiance, Holly brings together defense side insight, trial experience, and a client centered approach to complex litigation. She knows how sophisticated opponents build their cases because she once represented them. Now she uses that experience to make sure injured people are not outmatched when the stakes are highest.
Request a Catastrophic Trucking Case Review
Please provide enough information for an initial conflicts check and attorney discussion. Don’t send privileged communications, confidential strategy, medical records, or protected documents until the firm confirms that it can review them.
*Submitting this form doesn’t create an attorney-client, referral, or co-counsel relationship. Please don’t rely on this submission to protect a statute of limitations, filing deadline, preservation obligation, or other time-sensitive requirement.*
Frequently Asked Questions
What is freight-broker liability?
Freight-broker liability generally refers to a claim that a broker’s own conduct contributed to a crash or resulting harm. One potential theory is negligent carrier selection, which may allege that a broker failed to use reasonable care when selecting a motor carrier.
The exact duty, elements, defenses, and available claims depend on the jurisdiction and facts.
Did Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II make brokers automatically liable?
The Court didn’t decide whether the broker was negligent, whether its conduct caused the crash, or whether the plaintiff would ultimately recover.
Does the Montgomery decision eliminate every FAAAA preemption defense?
No. The Court addressed the specific negligent-hiring claim before it. Other claims, factual situations, statutory provisions, and state laws may raise different preemption questions.
What documents can identify the freight broker?
Rate confirmations, broker-carrier agreements, bills of lading, load tenders, dispatch communications, invoices, payment records, emails, platform records, and shipping instructions may identify the companies involved in arranging the load.
What can SAFER data show?
The SAFER Company Snapshot may provide carrier identification, operating information, cargo classifications, inspection summaries, out-of-service information, crash data, and a safety rating when one has been assigned.
Does an active DOT number prove that a carrier was safe?
No. Operating authority and overall safety are different questions. FMCSA cautions users against drawing conclusions about a carrier’s overall safety condition solely from publicly displayed SMS information.
Can Defiance review a case that’s already in litigation?
Yes, depending on deadlines and procedural posture. Filed cases may still present opportunities to investigate broker involvement, corporate relationships, carrier-selection evidence, and additional discovery.
Does Defiance take control of the referring attorney’s case?
Not necessarily. The relationship may involve consultation, co-counsel, a full referral, or a specifically defined litigation role. The responsibilities of each attorney will be discussed and documented before the work begins.
How are co-counsel or referral fees handled?
Any fee arrangement must comply with the applicable professional rules and be documented in writing. There’s no referral or fee-sharing agreement based solely on an inquiry or preliminary case review.
Should I wait until I confirm the broker’s identity?
No. The identity of the broker or logistics intermediary may not be obvious at the beginning. Early review of load documents, payment records, communications, and transportation records may help identify the relevant parties.
Does submitting a case create an attorney-client or co-counsel relationship?
No. Defiance must first complete a conflicts review, evaluate the matter, and enter into a signed written agreement.