We will hear argument this morning in case 24, 1238, Montgomery v. Caribbean Transport.

Mr. Clement.

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, when Congress ended federal economic regulation of the transportation industry,

it did not want states to fill the deregulatory gap with economic regulation of their own.

It thus enacted a preemption clause modeled on the Airline Deregulation Act that preempts

state laws related to prices, routes, or services of motor carriers or brokers with respect

to the transportation of property. But while Congress favored economic deregulation, the last thing it wanted was safety

deregulation.

To that end, it preserved federal safety regulatory authority, and it accepted state safety regulatory

authority with respect to motor vehicles. My friends concede that state

tort law is a classic exercise of regulatory authority and that a principal aim of tort law is

safety. Thus, the question in this case boils down to whether the negligent hiring claim here is

with respect to motor vehicles.

Of course it is.

The whole point of the tort is to keep dangerous motor vehicles off of the road.

Indeed, my friends concede as much when the tort is directed at a carrier.

But that essentially gives away the game, because it's the same tort, whether it's directed at a carrier or a broker,

and it is no less with respect to motor vehicles when it's directed against a broker who may

well know that the vehicles are poorly maintained or the carrier is underinsured or not registered

with the federal government at all. Nonetheless, my friends would immunize the brokers in all those situations.

That cannot be squared with the plain text or with common sense. Indeed, my friends have to

insert words into the statute, like direct linked or direct connection, that are absent from

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