(Editor’s notice: C.H. Robinson was dismissed as a defendant within the case in late June. The complete story is right here.)
The mixture of a excessive profile deadly crash involving an unlawful immigrant driver plus the authorized fallout from the case of Montgomery vs Caribe Transport II is prone to imply a Florida lawsuit will change into a closely-watched case.
The property of Faniola Joseph on behalf of her surviving daughter, Angeline Daudin, filed swimsuit final week towards a number of defendants, together with C.H. Robinson, within the August 2025 crash in St. Lucie County that led to the deaths of three individuals driving in a minivan that smashed right into a truck pushed by Harjinder Singh. The case is filed in St. Lucie circuit courtroom.
C.H. Robinson, in an announcement to BigRig, stated it didn’t dealer the load being hauled by a provider named White Hawk. It additionally stated that it had not employed the provider since 2024.
A lethal U-turn
Singh tried to make a U-turn throughout a number of lanes of Florida’s Turnpike. He was searching for to make the flip into what the lawsuit calls a “crossover slot” that’s designed to deal with turns for official autos, not a full tractor-trailer mixture.
“For a business motorized vehicle such because the truck operated by Singh, making an attempt a U-turn by way of this emergency crossover is expressly forbidden by regulation and the posted signage,” the lawsuit says.
As Singh made the flip from the surface shoulder, it created “an unavoidable barrier for approaching northbound site visitors,” the lawsuit stated.
That site visitors included a minivan with a driver and two passengers, together with Joseph. The ensuing crash with Singh’s truck noticed the minivan find yourself underneath the trailer, and all three individuals within the automobile had been killed.
Singh was within the U.S. illegally on the time of the crash. He’s being held with out bond.
A political sizzling potato
The horrific nature of the crash, together with Singh’s immigration standing and the truth that his CDL had been granted by California, has put the deadly wreck on the coronary heart of political battles past the accident itself.
The lawsuit comes simply weeks after the Montgomery determination earlier than the Supreme Court docket. That unanimous SCOTUS determination settled conflicting precedents in a number of circuit courts concerning dealer legal responsibility underneath the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (F4A), holding that the so-called security exception that allowed a state authorized motion towards a transportation firm may very well be used to take motion towards a dealer who employed a provider concerned in a crash. Some interpretations of F4A on the circuit courtroom had stated such motion was preempted.
C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) was the dealer that employed Caribe Transport II. A truck from that firm struck driver Shawn Montgomery, who was tending to his personal truck on the facet of an Illinois street, and he misplaced a leg in consequence.
A decrease courtroom, affirmed by the Seventh Circuit, stated the protection exception had preempted authorized motion towards C.H. Robinson. However the Montgomery determination has ended that protection for your complete brokerage neighborhood in all jurisdictions.
Whereas Singh and White Hawk are defendants, this case will probably be of curiosity as a result of it is without doubt one of the first to focus on a freight dealer within the post-Montgomery world. And never simply any dealer: the largest, and the one which led the unsuccessful struggle earlier than the Supreme Court docket within the Montgomery case to maintain the 3PL trade from being sucked into the protection exception.
Defining a dealer’s accountability
C.H. Robinson “owed an obligation to train affordable care within the choice and retention of the motor provider it employed to move the topic cargo, together with an obligation to pick out or retain a motor provider that it knew or ought to have recognized was unfit, unsafe, unqualified or in any other case moderately prone to trigger hurt to the motoring public,” the lawsuit alleges.
And in a passage that sums up your complete situation now dealing with 3PLs in a post-Montgomery world, the lawsuit says “the train of affordable care in choosing a motor provider, underneath each C.H. Robinson’s personal represented requirements and the customized and observe of the brokerage trade, required C.H. Robinson to evaluation a provider’s publicly out there security report and {qualifications} earlier than entrusting it with a cargo.”
One of many pillars of the 3PL’s authorized arguments, not simply in Montgomery however in decrease courtroom federal actions the place it prevailed, was {that a} provider registered with the Federal Motor Service Security Administration (FMCSA) not underneath any kind of unfavorable classification that will recommend it shouldn’t be booked by a dealer relieved the 3PL of authorized legal responsibility.
What would be the new set of authorized precedents underneath that query of accountability–a key FMCSA official, Jesse Elison, stated not too long ago at a BigRig discussion board, “we aren’t a rankings company”–is sufficient of a difficulty that the Transportation Intermediaries Affiliation not too long ago requested FMCSA for a rulemaking course of to assist make clear the difficulty.
That wasn’t our man
Whereas there are questions surrounding authorized legal responsibility in a post-Montgomery freight market, C.H. Robinson’s first line of protection seems to be that it had nothing to do with White Hawk, the provider concerned within the crash.
In a ready assertion, Dorothy Capers, C.H. Robinson’s chief authorized officer, stated White Hawk “isn’t an permitted provider for C.H. Robinson nor has been licensed in our system for years.”
Capers stated White Hawk’s final recorded use by C.H. Robinson, in response to the corporate’s data “final moved a cargo for C.H. Robinson on Jan. 29, 2024, they usually weren’t energetic or licensed on the time of the Aug. 12, 2025, incident in query.”
“We additionally don’t have any report of this cargo being brokered by C.H. Robinson,” she added.
FMCSA’s SAFER info on White Hawk is that’s energetic however “not licensed.”
Capers stated that “our deepest sympathies exit to all of the households affected by roadway tragedies. Security issues deeply to us and is foundational to how we function and the choices we make every single day.”
In the meantime, the unique case of Montgomery vs. Caribe Transport II on Monday acquired its formal judgment from the Supreme Court docket. Attorneys might want to file their subsequent briefs within the case to the Seventh Circuit by July 6.
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The put up C.H. Robinson a defendant in post-Montgomery Florida dealer legal responsibility case appeared first on BigRig.