THE NEW BROKER VETTING RULES: WHAT MONTGOMERY MEANS FOR NEW CARRIERS

When we ran our dispatch operation, the broker setup was the easy part. A new carrier got their authority, we sent over a W-9 and a COI, and most brokers waved them in. Active authority plus insurance was basically the whole test.

That test just changed.

On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling — Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC — that quietly rewired how every broker in the country looks at the carriers they hire. If you’re a new authority trying to find your first loads, you’ve probably already heard the rumors flying around the Facebook groups: “Brokers won’t work with new carriers anymore.” “TQL dropped everybody under six months.” “The new rule killed it for the little guy.”

Some of that is true. Most of it isn’t. Let us break it down — no-BS zone.

What is the Montgomery v. Caribe ruling, in plain English?

Here’s the short version. A 2017 crash in Illinois badly injured a man named Shawn Montgomery. The truck that hit him was running a load arranged by C.H. Robinson, one of the biggest freight brokers in North America. Montgomery’s lawyers argued the broker should have checked the carrier’s safety history before handing it the load — and that if they had, they’d have seen the red flags.

For years, brokers beat these lawsuits with one argument: a federal law called the FAAAA (the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act) preempts state negligence claims, so the case gets thrown out before it ever reaches a jury. In a lot of courts, that worked.

In May 2026, the Supreme Court closed that door. The justices ruled 9-0 that the FAAAA’s “safety exception” lets these negligent-hiring claims go forward. Brokers can now be taken to court — under state law — when a carrier they picked causes a serious wreck.

One thing to be precise about, because the groups keep getting it wrong: this is not a new FMCSA regulation. Nobody passed a rule that says brokers can’t use new carriers. It’s a Supreme Court decision about who can get sued. But the practical effect ripples straight down to your truck, because brokers respond to lawsuit risk the same way you respond to a sketchy load — they get cautious.

Is this an FMCSA rule or a “new law”?

Neither, exactly. It’s case law — a court interpreting existing law. That distinction matters for two reasons.

First, there’s no compliance checklist to satisfy. You can’t “file a form” to fix it. The change shows up as brokers tightening their internal vetting, and every broker does it a little differently.

Second, the ruling deliberately didn’t define what counts as “negligent.” The Court left that to be fought out case by case. So no broker actually knows exactly where the new line is. When a business doesn’t know where the line is, it backs up from it. That’s the instinct driving everything you’re seeing right now.

Do brokers still work with new carriers?

This is the big fear, and the honest answer is: yes, but the bar is higher.

Let us kill the loudest rumor first. The one going around right now is that TQL stopped working with new authorities because of the ruling. We went looking for anything that backs that up, and it isn’t there. There’s no evidence TQL banned new carriers — and the broker that actually lost the Montgomery case, C.H. Robinson, is one of the most new-carrier-friendly in the country. On their own carrier page, C.H. Robinson states there’s no minimum fleet size or volume requirement, you don’t need prior load-hauling experience, and once your authority and documentation are active you can typically book your first load within a couple business days.

So the broker most exposed to this ruling welcomes new authorities from day one. That tells you the “new rule banned new carriers” story is mostly group panic, not reality.

What is real: industry analysts mostly expect tighter vetting, not a mass shutout. The brokers feeling the most pressure are small brokerages without big compliance departments. The freight that’s getting steered hardest toward established carriers is the high-value, hazmat, reefer, and oversized stuff. Dry van and flatbed for a clean new authority? Still very much available.

Before vs. after: how broker vetting changed

The old broker workflow took about three minutes: pull the carrier up in SAFER, confirm authority is active, confirm insurance is active, tender the load. That floor still exists. What changed is everything stacked on top of it.

The single biggest shift is that last row. Brokers aren’t just checking your safety data — they’re saving proof that they checked it, so they can defend the decision if a load you hauled ends up in court later. That means the carriers who make a broker’s vetting easy and clean are the ones who get the repeat calls.

Why new carriers feel the squeeze (and why it’s not what you think)

Here’s the nuance the panic posts miss. A new authority doesn’t have a bad safety record. You have no record. Zero inspections. No CSA scores. No crash history. A blank page.

The negligent-selection lawsuits brokers are scared of almost always involve carriers with known red flags — a Conditional safety rating, a sky-high out-of-service percentage, a string of crashes the broker ignored. That’s the profile that gets a broker sued. A brand-new carrier with a clean (if empty) file is a completely different animal.

So the real challenge for a new carrier isn’t proving you’re safe. It’s giving the broker enough to feel comfortable saying yes when there’s no data to lean on. That’s a presentation and documentation problem — and that part is 100% in your control.

For perspective on how seriously the safety side is being watched: the 2025 CVSA International Roadcheck inspected 56,178 commercial vehicles and put 22.6% of them out of service. Roughly one in five. Brokers know those numbers, and a clean inspection record — once you start building one — is now a genuine competitive edge, not just a compliance box.

How brokers actually vet carriers now

If you want to think like the person on the other side of the load offer, these are the four data points carrying most of the weight after Montgomery:

1. CSA BASIC scores. Seven categories, each scored as a percentile, with the alert thresholds varying by category. Vehicle Maintenance and Unsafe Driving are where most violations land. You won’t have scores yet as a new carrier — that’s expected — but the moment you start getting inspected, this is what brokers watch.
2. Safety rating. Satisfactory, Conditional, or Unsatisfactory. New carriers usually start unrated, which is normal. A Conditional rating, though, is now a load-access problem, not just an insurance headache.
3. Out-of-service percentage. What share of your inspections ended with the truck or driver pulled off the road. Keep this clean and you stand out.
4. Crash history. Self-explanatory, and it follows you.

How to get loads as a new carrier after Montgomery

Same playbook the good carriers ran in our dispatch days — just tightened up for the new vetting reality. We watched too many new authorities skip these and wonder why they got ghosted.

1. Build a clean, complete carrier packet before you submit anything

W-9, certificate of insurance, and your authority letter at minimum. No expired documents, no blanks, no typos. A sloppy packet reads as a sloppy operation, and brokers now have a reason to care. Our full broker setup walkthrough covers exactly what goes in it.

2. Carry the insurance brokers actually want to see

The common floor is $1 million auto liability and $100,000 cargo. Make sure the coverage is active, the expiration date is in the future, and there’s a working insurance contact on the certificate.

3. Target brokers by authority age — and apply at the right time

Some brokers take you on day one; others want 30, 90 days, six months, or a year. Don’t waste applications on a broker who won’t look at you yet (see the breakdown below).

4. Keep every inspection spotless from load one

Your safety record starts the day you roll. A clean first 90 days of inspections builds the exact track record brokers are now leaning on.

5. Get on the load boards and work them daily

Brokered freight is still where most new carriers fill the calendar. The carriers who win the good loads are the ones watching rates and lanes every day, not checking once and waiting for the phone to ring. Here are the load boards worth paying for.

6. Build direct relationships, not one-off loads

A broker who knows you, trusts your paperwork, and has moved freight with you cleanly is far less worried about the “negligent selection” question. Repeat business is your moat.

7. Know your cost per mile before you book

A tighter market means more pressure to take cheap freight just to stay moving. Don’t. Know your numbers, know your floor, and walk away from loads that don’t clear it. Once you’re established, our rate negotiation scripts help you push every load higher.

How much authority age do brokers actually want?

Here’s the honest version, from our dispatch days watching new authorities try to get set up: there’s no single number, and any list that hands you a tidy broker-by-broker chart is guessing. Brokers rarely publish a hard authority-age cutoff, and they change them whenever they want. What we consistently saw was a spread:

The practical takeaway: don’t burn your energy applying to the six-month and one-year brokers in week one. Start with the day-one brokers, stack up clean loads and clean inspections, and watch the doors open in waves at 90 days, six months, and a year. Your authority age is an asset that compounds — every month you run clean, more of the market becomes available to you.

One more change new carriers need to know: MC numbers are gone

While you’re sorting out broker setups, here’s a piece of news a lot of new operators still haven’t caught: as of October 1, 2025, FMCSA retired MC numbers. New applicants don’t get an MC, MX, or FF docket number anymore. Your USDOT number is now the single federal identifier for your authority.

So if someone tells you to “get your DOT and MC numbers,” gently correct them — you’re getting a USDOT number with your operating authority tied to it. Update any old paperwork, contracts, factoring docs, or carrier packets that still reference an MC number. Brokers and shippers are shifting to USDOT-based verification, which ties neatly into the whole point of this article: everything about your authority now lives under one number that’s easy to look up — including your safety data.

The bottom line for new carriers

The Montgomery ruling didn’t lock you out. It raised the standard. Brokers are vetting on safety data and keeping receipts, and a new authority with no record has to win on presentation, clean documentation, spotless early inspections, and real relationships.

That’s not a disadvantage if you run it right. Half the new carriers out there are still submitting expired COIs and one-line emails. Show up organized, look low-risk, target the right brokers at the right time, and know your numbers cold — and you’ll compete just fine in this market.

Related Guides

Frequently Asked Questions