More than thirty years ago, Congress enacted the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) to preempt state laws related to motor carrier prices, routes, and services. In the FAAAA, like in comparable provisions of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (ADA), Congress sought to protect the deregulation of transportation services. In both cases, Congress recognized that interfering state laws could erode the economic benefits of deregulation.
A decade ago, Thompson Coburn partners Warren Dean and Katie Kraft, who chair the firm’s Supreme Court practice, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the International Air Transport Association in Northwest Inc. v. Ginsburg, 572 U.S. 273 (2014). Northwest challenged the Ninth Circuit’s narrowing of the scope of federal preemption of state laws relating to air transportation in the ADA. Federal preemption won the day. The Supreme Court, in reversing the Ninth Circuit, confirmed that a state law claim for breach of the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing was sufficiently connected to airline rates and services to trigger ADA preemption.
Last week, Warren and Katie filed a brief on behalf of C.H. Robinson, Respondent in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, et al., No. 24-1238 (petition for writ of certiorari to the Seventh Circuit), urging the Court to consider and affirm the Seventh Circuit’s decision that the FAAAA preempts state common-law negligent selection claims against freight brokers. Should the Supreme Court grant certiorari, a decision affirming the Seventh Circuit would overrule contrary precedent, first established by the Ninth Circuit in Miller v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 976 F.3d 1016 (2020), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 2866 (2022), that drastically limited the scope of FAAAA preemption.
The issue at play—liability for the alleged negligent selection of a motor carrier following a highway accident—is of vital importance to the U.S. freight industry as a whole. It involves the interpretation of the “safety exception” in the preemption provision’s savings clause, which saves from preemption a State’s exercise of its safety regulatory authority with respect to motor vehicles. Current circuits decisions are split. The Ninth and Sixth Circuits have ruled that the safety exception “saves” from preemption state common law claims for negligent selection of a motor carrier because such claims are at least indirectly connected to motor vehicle safety. The Seventh and Eleventh Circuits have determined that such claims remain preempted because they are not directly connected to motor vehicles. C.H. Robinson’s brief in Montgomery argues that the FAAAA’s statutory text and legislative history and Supreme Court precedent confirm that the safety exception in the FAAAA’s savings clause does not save these claims and that to find otherwise, as the Ninth and Sixth Circuits have done, enables the States to establish varying fitness standards for motor carriers in interstate commerce through their tort systems in direct contravention of Congress’s deregulatory objectives. The brief asks the Court to review the question, affirm the Seventh Circuit, and uphold deregulation. The brief can be found here.
C.H. Robinson is one of the largest freight brokerage firms in the world and a leader in the freight transportation, third-party logistics, and supply chain management industries, particularly in North American surface transportation.
