Trump crackdown on immigrant truck drivers gets airtime at Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (CN) — Justice Brett Kavanaugh flagged growing concerns about the literacy of immigrant truck drivers on Wednesday as the Supreme Court probed where to place the blame for a 2017 tractor-trailer crash.

The Donald Trump appointee pointed to reports of a critical issue plaguing the shipping industry: English-language proficiency assessments. Before the court was whether freight brokers were protected from liability when carriers hire negligent drivers. Kavanaugh questioned how the intermediary would know whether a trucking company was hiring safe drivers.

“If you’re hiring drivers who can’t read the signs, that seems like a safety issue,” Kavanaugh said, citing reporting from the Wall Street Journal finding that over 10,000 truckers failed English tests over the past year.

Immigrant truck drivers have come under scrutiny by the Trump administration, which finalized a rule last month barring “unqualified foreign drivers” from obtaining commercial licenses. The move follows executive orders from Trump and actions by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to audit foreign workers’ licenses and strengthen enforcement of English-language standards.

Paul Clement, an attorney with Clement & Murphy representing the victim of the 2017 crash, noted the potential legal concerns of discriminating on the basis of English-language proficiency. The American Federation of Teachers and the Chinese American Truckers Association are among the groups challenging the crackdown on immigrant drivers as unlawful.

But Clement worried Kavanagh’s concerns might be alarmist, noting that freight brokers could avoid liability by selecting carriers with reasonable hiring practices.

“As long as you’re not hiring fly-by-night carriers who aren’t doing it and have the minimum $750,000 of insurance … they’re in a position where they are doing everything they can,” Clement said. “I would think the broker is not going to have a problem if it’s asking the hard questions of the carrier.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, questioned Kavanaugh’s policy concerns, noting the court was only asked whether federal law prohibited these lawsuits.

“This is not a liability statute, as I see it,” Jackson said. “It’s not setting up a cause of action for any kind of trucking accident. It’s leaving it to the state.”

In the wake of Congress’ deregulatory agenda during the 1980s, lawmakers enacted the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which prohibited states from re-imposing the same economic regulation of the trucking industry ended at the federal level. Lawmakers added a safety exception, however, giving states safety regulatory authority over motor vehicles.

C.H. Robinson, a freight broker, claimed the FAAAA barred Shawn Montgomery’s lawsuit for the 2017 crash. Montgomery’s tractor-trailer was parked on the side of Interstate 70 in Illinois when Yosniel Varela-Mojena drove full speed into the vehicle. Montgomery suffered severe injuries from the crash, including the amputation of his lower leg.

Caribe Transport, a carrier company that hired the driver, and Varela-Mojena had poor safety records. Months before Montgomery’s crash, Varela-Mojena was involved in another incident where he was said to be operating his truck carelessly. Caribe Transport only operated nine trucks, but it was involved in three reported crashes during a three-month stretch leading up to the accident.

Montgomery filed state-law claims against C.H. Robinson, arguing the broker should be liable for negligently hiring Caribe Transport and Varela-Mojena.

Two lower courts dismissed Montgomery’s claims under the FAAAA. Despite the Supreme Court’s extended review Wednesday, it wasn’t clear where the justices would land.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, another Trump appointee, seemed open to looping brokers into the liability chain.

“Once that camel’s nose is under the tent, and you can have a claim for negligent hiring against the carrier, why not against the broker?” Gorsuch asked.

Seeming to also side with Montgomery, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Barack Obama appointee, noted states already regulate driver behavior, such as seatbelt laws.

“What’s incompatible with federal law with respect to safety to say you shouldn’t operate this if you’re a careless, negligent driver?” Sotomayor asked.

However, some justices struggled with the incongruence of claims against brokers for intrastate transport being preempted while claims for interstate transportation would be allowed.

“[It] is very hard to accept, that there’s preemption for intrastate activity but not for interstate activity, and I came to the argument hoping you were going to give us some brilliant way of reconciling these two provisions other than ‘just live with it,’ but I guess there’s no such theory,” Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, told Clement.

Follow @KelseyReichmann Follow @kelseyreichmann.bsky.social