CargoMatchMaker

@TimothyDooner @CBSNews Last year I made the mistake of leaving the lock on our garbage cage unlatched. Bears can apparently check locks. Who knew!

@CBSNews It’s no joke. There are bears all over Gatlinburg. They even rob the candy store

A bear chased several people across a parking lot in Gatlinburg, Tennessee as some scrambled to get inside their vehicles for safety. The bear later crossed the street to a river nearby.

'The Court decided nothing about vicarious liability. Negligent hiring says you chose badly. Vicarious liability says the carrier was functioning as your agent, so its conduct is your conduct, which reaches past the selection decision into how the freight actually moved. It was never preempted, it wasn’t before the Court, and Montgomery left it exactly where it was. For a broker exercising real control over routing, scheduling, equipment, or dispatch, the agency theory is frequently the larger exposure, and it’s the one that scales with how modern digital freight matching actually works.' This why its important to vet before you send the rate confirmation. There can be no control before the motor carrier has been hired.

@StephenRuhe We reposition things with wheels on flatbeds and power only. Time sensitive not without peril. Listening to you guys talk about dry van contract freight makes me jealous.

@CargoMatchMaker Interesting, without going into to much detail. What kind of projects are these?

Industry question for the brokers and carriers out here. What is the size of your company and what is your average days to bill once a load has been delivered? When you comment below specify if you are a broker, carrier, or both, size, and the average days. If both split it out if the assets/brokerage is different.

@itchavi @FreightAlley Its coming and will lead to vetting every driver for every shipment.

@FreightAlley One step closer and one step removed from shipper liability.

If an uninsured carrier is tendered a double brokered load, "plaintiff attorneys target the primary broker for failing to exercise reasonable care"

@FreightAlley Double brokering is an easy problem to solve if you have some time to invest.

Plantiffs attorneys look for holes in the broker's processes to demonstrate to a jury that the broker "should have known" that the load was being double brokered.

Montgomery vs Caribe Transport II is old news We now know, everyone involved with transportation (shippers, brokers and vetting platforms) runs the risk of ending up in front of a jury defending against a negligent hiring claim. The multi-million-dollar question is: Where do we go from here? To find direction, it’s important to understand history so we can navigate the future. Let history be your guide Introducing Sperl v C.H. Robinson and Cornejo v Dakota Lines (Alliance Shippers). In 2011 a jury hit C.H. Robinson for $23.8 million for a crash it did not cause. In 2023 a jury hit Alliance Shippers for $18.2 million for a crash it did not cause. Robinson lost. Alliance won on appeal. Same state, same legal test, opposite results. Neither case turned on whether the broker picked a bad carrier. We are past that. Each turned on something narrower: did the broker's actual day-to-day conduct make the driver its legal agent. Let’s dig in Sperl v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, 408 Ill. App. 3d 1051 (2011). CHR dispatched the driver directly. It paid her directly into her personal bank account, not through her carrier. It owned the freight and directed delivery to its own warehouse. It required constant check calls and continuous temperature monitoring and backed all of it with a fine schedule running $50 to $500 that, on the driver's own testimony, forced her to violate federal hours of service rules just to avoid the fines. The court didn't care what the contract called her. It looked at what CHR did. The court determined C.H. Robinson controlled the manner in which the shipment was transported. Vicarious liability affirmed. Cornejo v. Dakota Lines, Inc., 2023 IL App (1st) 220633. Alliance Shippers, a 3PL, brokered a load to Dakota Lines. They never paid the driver, never hired, trained, or fired him, never dispatched him, never spoke to him, never controlled his route, never owned the equipment. Plaintiff threw everything else available at the wall, insurance and indemnification requirements, status updates, freight bill specs, a 98.7 percent on time scorecard, even Alliance's own marketing. The court rejected every one of them, holding directly that insurance requirements and performance scoring do not, by themselves, establish agency. The court ruled Alliance did not control the manner in which the shipment was transported. Alliance stayed in contact with Dakota throughout the shipment, EDI updates, delay notifications, an on-time scorecard, but every bit of it was aimed at the result, whether the load arrived intact and on schedule, not the manner in which Dakota's driver actually hauled it. The court has seen this before: in a separate 7th Circuit case applying the same Illinois test, daily check-in calls during a haul didn't establish control either. Contact during transit is not the same as control over transit. Alliance was not vicariously liable. Verdict reversed. Why it matters Every one of these cases turns on the same test: does the broker control the result of the shipment, or the manner in which the driver performs it. Result oriented instructions are safe. Manner of performance control creates an agent. Result oriented, no agency exposure Telling a carrier where to pick up, where to deliver, and by when. The shipper in Shoemaker v. Elmhurst Chicago Stone Co. did exactly this and was not liable. Specifying the particular hauling task is not control over how the job gets done. Requiring a specific trailer type, container, PPE or chassis for a load. Alliance told Dakota it needed a J.B. Hunt container and a specific chassis in Cornejo. Not agency. Requiring specialized equipment, even something as unusual as insulated vats for molten metal in Petersen v. U.S. Reduction Co., does not establish control over the manner of driving. Requiring insurance coverage and naming the broker as an additional insured. Rejected as evidence of agency in Cornejo, citing Oliveira Brooks v. Re/Max International. This is risk allocation, not control. Running an on-time performance scorecard. Alliance's 98.7 percent scorecard in Cornejo was rejected outright, with the court citing Scheinman v. Martin's Bulk Milk Service for the same conclusion on a 98 percent standard. Requiring status updates during transit, check calls, EDI pings, notification of delays. Alliance required these throughout the haul in Cornejo. The 7th Circuit reached the same result in Kolchinsky v. Western Dairy Transport, where daily check-in calls during the haul did not establish control. Knowing where the truck is does not mean you are driving it. Manner of performance control, real agency exposure Dispatching the driver directly instead of routing every shipment through the carrier. In Sperl, the driver called CH Robinson directly for work and CH Robinson dispatched her, cutting the carrier out of the loop entirely. That is the single fact both Sperl and Cornejo treat as most damaging when it shows up on the broker's side of the ledger. Cornejo notes Alliance never dispatched or spoke to the driver at all, and calls that out as one of the two most important distinctions from Sperl. Vetting is not agency None of this should leave a shipper, a broker, or a vetting platform apprehensive about vetting harder. The control test in Sperl and Cornejo looks at conduct during performance, dispatch, payment, routing, fines, branding, contractual control over method. Confirming a driver's identity, employment, insurance, and knowledge before a load is tendered is a credentialing decision, not an operational instruction, and it happens before the shipment's operational clock starts. It cannot be evidence of control over how the work was performed, because when the vetting happens, the motor carrier has not been dispatched. Where do we go from here The path is straightforward. Vet hard, document it, and keep it a one-time gate. Stay out of dispatch, stay out of payment, stay out of the fine schedule, and let the carrier run its own operation. Do that and you have built a defense to the claim that is coming, negligent selection, without building the evidence for the claim that could be next, vicarious liability through agency. Disclaimer: This post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The analysis is based on specific Illinois cases and general industry practices. Laws and court interpretations vary by jurisdiction. Always consult qualified legal counsel for advice tailored to your specific operations, contracts, and risk profile.

@realcarrier411 I would be concerned dispatching a shipment to a motor carrier who also has FF authority. Seems like a license to double broker, imo.

🚨 MOTUS EXPLAINER SERIES 🚨 ONE COMPANY CAN HAVE MULTIPLE FMCSA REGISTRATIONS One of the biggest misconceptions about MOTUS is that it's simply assigning random MC/FF/MX and USDOT numbers. It's much bigger than that. Under the new MOTUS registration platform, a single transportation company can register for multiple types of operating authority under a modern registration framework. That means the conversation is no longer just: 🚛 "What's their MC/FF/MX number?" Instead, it's becoming: 📋 "What registrations does this company actually hold?" Depending on the business, a company may operate as: • Property Carrier • Broker • Freight Forwarder • Household Goods Carrier • Passenger Carrier • Private Carrier • Intermodal Equipment Provider And several other registration types. In other words, the registration itself is becoming just as important as the identifier attached to it. For brokers, shippers, insurers, investigators, and technology providers, understanding what a company is authorized to do is becoming more important than simply recognizing an MC/FF/MX number. MOTUS isn't just changing FMCSA's technology. It's changing the way the transportation industry thinks about registration itself. Tomorrow: Why the words "active authority" don't always tell the whole story anymore. Stay tuned. We'll keep breaking down complex transportation topics into explanations everyone in the industry can understand. If that's the kind of content you enjoy, you're in the right place.

Here's what I kept thinking about after writing all of this... Government can't be everywhere. FMCSA can regulate who gets authority. State officers can conduct inspections. Prosecutors can bring criminal cases. But brokers decide who gets the load. Shippers decide who gets the freight. Insurers decide who gets coverage. Factoring companies decide who gets funded. In many ways, the transportation industry is its own first line of enforcement. The goal shouldn't be more regulations. The goal should be making compliance the smartest business decision.

@FreightAlley We are traveling into the heart of darkness today. YOLO!

The gray shaded area is where the air quality has dropped significantly due to the Canadian wildfires.

@FreightAlley Imagine hating someone you’ve never met.

Imagine hating someone so much that you will drive an extra hour just to avoid having their initials on a boarding pass

@realcarrier411 @TimothyDooner 😂

@TimothyDooner The "Not Specified" part triggers me. 🤣

Tim Dooner just let me in on a little secret... the audience demographics for FreightSpin's Nooner with Dooner show. Let's just say... it's a bit of a sausage party. 🌭😂 If you're interested in the latest and greatest from the freight world - with a twist you won't find anywhere else - you'll fit right in. Apparently our audience isn't just overwhelmingly male... they also like their freight news a little less corporate and a lot more fun. Sorry, ladies. We're working on it.

@maybedanielleee @Brookltnwilliw @gofastport has been helping veterans find jobs for years. Good company run by good people.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia currently offer a skills test waiver for eligible military personnel seeking a Commercial Driver's License (CDL). 27 states (green) offer the Even Exchange program, which waives both the skills and the knowledge tests to obtain the CDL. 5 states (yellow) are working on implementing the Even Exchange program.

I am in tears. President Trump just announced our VETERANS will replace illegals as truck drivers ❤️ “Any American that’s driven a heavy truck for our military is automatically eligible for a commercial drivers license” THIS IS HUGE NEWS 🔥

@FreightAlley My wife laughed at me and asked ‘when will you ever need bioweapon defense mode!’ Who’s laughing now, sweet tart!

Canadian and US Wildfires generate more carbon emissions than the industrial sector

@BlutaufdemEis If you’re in New Buffalo Mi it might not be wildfire smoke.

Southern Michigan the smoke from the fires are so thick it looks like I'm driving through fog I haven't seen smoke this thick since fire season last year in Alaska, and in that case I was working on the fires! This is pretty wild I've never seen anything like this down here

@John__Ferguson @REGIONRAT I’m starting to think dump the trailer is code for something else and all the drivers are laughing at us rn.

@REGIONRAT Both sides have done it. I’ll start keeping a tally 😂

Why do truck drivers automatically revert to “I’m dumping the trailer” as soon as there is any little issue at the receiver. Delivery # issue-“I’m dumping the trailer” Paperwork issue-“I’m dumping the trailer” Pallet rework-“I’m dumping the trailer” Two hours and one minute at receiver-“I’m dumping the trailer” Pull into dock door x-“I’m dumping the trailer” Good morning-“I’m dumping the trailer”

@SteveMcIsaac My wife laughed at me and asked 'when will you ever use bioweapon defense mode?' Now who's laughing, sweet tart!

This smoke in Michigan is unbearable Kids will not be able to go outside and play for the next 2 days. It smells like a bonfire outside anywhere. Pretty neat, Eh? Happened last 3 summers too. WTH is going on? #canada #fire

@RealFreightspin Master class for companies that need to align short and medium term strategy with real world use cases. 💪🙏

Tesla Semi weighs in at approximately 23,500 lbs That’s roughly 4,000 lbs lighter than a battery electric truck like the Nikola Tre Covenant recently started a Tesla Semi pilot program in California, so we had their VP of Sustainability and Innovation, Matt McLelland stop by the FreightSpin studio for an episode of Nooner With Dooner

@BeaglTech What do you think about $HIMS

Buy NKE, LULU, FLUT, CMCSA, WBD, NFLX sell everything else

@realcarrier411 Well said... The current administration is trying but having a hard time getting a handle on the problem. What happens when there is a new sheriff in town.