TIA warns: TQL-linked broker liability case threatens industry

Mon, Sep 15, 2025, 12:36 PM 6 min read

With two requests before the Supreme Court to have the nine justices take up the issue of broker liability, the Transportation Intermediaries Association has weighed in on one of them, saying that small brokers are increasingly faced with an “acute existential threat” if there is not clarification of conflicting court rulings.

The TIA’s brief, submitted by the transportation practice of the Benesch Law Firm on behalf of the TIA, was specifically filed in the case of Total Quality Logistics, as the petitioner to the court, vs. Robert Cox. The two had squared off in the case of Cox vs. TQL in the Sixth Circuit, litigation that ultimately went against TQL over the question of whether a broker can be held liable for a negative outcome (it doesn’t necessarily need to be an accident with a fatality or injury) involving a truck it hired to meet a shipper’s request.

TQL, generally considered the second largest brokerage, lost that case, and has asked the Supreme Court for certiorari as it appeals the appellate court ruling.

But TQL vs. Cox is not the only case before the Supreme Court asking for a review of broker liability.

There is also a request for review In the case of Montgomery vs. Caribe Transport II, a decision in the Seventh Circuit that earlier this year found in favor of C.H. Robinson’s (NASDAQ: CHRW) defense it was protected by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) of 1994 from being held liable for a 2017 crash involving a Caribe truck that injured Shawn Montgomery.

The Supreme Court has rejected earlier certiorari requests for the court to take up conflicting court decisions over broker liability under the FAAAA. But the key argument made in the past in favor of the court taking up the issue–that circuit court decisions are at odds–is now particularly stark given that there are two concurrent requests for certiorari before it, one in which the brokerage company lost at the circuit level and another in which a brokerage was victorious.

The issue the TIA and others want the court to take up boils down to one phrase: “with respect to motor vehicles.”

It’s part of the “safety exception” of FAAAA, which as TIA says in its brief to the Court means that “states retain regulatory authority over motor vehicles, despite the otherwise broad preemptions language in the statute.”

The safety exemption “allows states to continue to regulate the safety of motor carriers, trucks and cars operating in the state,” according to the TIA brief.

Where the divide comes in is that two circuits have interpreted the safety clause’s grant of state regulatory powers “with respect to motor vehicles” to include brokers.