Ying Ye v. GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc. ( 2023 )

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-1805
YING YE, as Representative of the Estate of SHAWN LIN, de-
ceased,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
GLOBALTRANZ ENTERPRISES, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:18-CV-01961 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED DECEMBER 5, 2022 — DECIDED JULY 18, 2023
____________________
Before BRENNAN, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.
SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. This appeal presents a question of
preemption under the Federal Aviation Administration Au-
thorization Act. Ying Ye seeks to recover against GlobalTranz
Enterprises, a freight broker, following the death of her hus-
band in a highway accident. Ye claims GlobalTranz negli-
gently hired the motor carrier that employed the driver of the
truck that caused the accident. The district court concluded
2 No. 22-1805
both that the Act’s express preemption provision in 49 U.S.C.
§ 14501(c)(1) bars Ye’s claim and that the Act’s safety excep-
tion in § 14501(c)(2)(A) does not save the claim. We agree and
affirm.
I
GlobalTranz is a freight broker that provides transporta-
tion logistics services to parties seeking to ship goods. In 2017
a company contacted GlobalTranz to provide such services
for goods to be transported from Illinois to Texas. Global-
Tranz hired the motor carrier Global Sunrise, Inc. to provide
that shipping service. This arrangement meant that Global
Sunrise provided the driver and vehicle to complete the ship-
ping.
On November 7, 2017, the truck completing that shipping
route, driven by a Global Sunrise employee, collided with a
motorcycle driven by Ying Ye’s husband, Shawn Lin, on an
interstate highway near Conroe, Texas. Lin sustained serious
injuries and died two weeks later.
As Lin’s surviving spouse, Ye brought a diversity suit
against Global Sunrise in its capacity as the motor carrier that
employed the truck driver involved in the crash. Ye brought
two Illinois tort claims—one for negligent hiring and another
for vicarious liability—against the motor carrier.
Ye later amended her complaint to add two Illinois tort
claims against GlobalTranz for its role as the broker that hired
Global Sunrise. Ye’s first claim—negligent hiring—alleged
that GlobalTranz “was negligent in selecting Global Sunrise
Inc. to transport freight on its behalf as they knew, or should
have known, that Global Sunrise Inc. was an unsafe company
with a history of hours of service and unsafe driving
No. 22-1805 3
violations that would’ve alerted a reasonably prudent person
to the same” and that this negligence proximately caused
Lin’s death. Ye’s second claim—vicarious liability—alleged
that GlobalTranz “exercised sufficient control over Global
Sunrise” such that GlobalTranz “is vicariously liable for the
negligence of Global Sunrise” and its driver.
Counsel for Global Sunrise withdrew from the litigation
in May 2019. After more than two years passed without entry
of new counsel, Ye moved for default judgment. The district
court granted Ye’s motion and entered default judgment
against Global Sunrise on both of Ye’s claims against the mo-
tor carrier. Following a hearing in April 2022, the court
awarded Ye $10 million in survival damages and wrongful-
death damages against Global Sunrise. No aspect of this ap-
peal relates to Ye’s claims against Global Sunrise.
Meanwhile, Ye continued to litigate her separate claims
against GlobalTranz. In November 2019 GlobalTranz moved
to dismiss the claims, which the district court construed as a
motion for judgment on the pleadings. The district court
granted the motion as to Ye’s negligent hiring claim, finding
the claim to be barred by the Federal Aviation Administration
Authorization Act. The court determined Ye’s negligent hir-
ing claim was prohibited under the Act’s express preemption
provision in 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1) and not saved by any of
the Act’s exceptions, including the safety exception in
§ 14501(c)(2)(A). The court did not dismiss the vicarious lia-
bility claim on the pleadings, but after one year of discovery
entered summary judgment for GlobalTranz on the merits of
that claim.
Ye now appeals the district court’s dismissal of her negli-
gent hiring claim against GlobalTranz.
4 No. 22-1805
II
Federal preemption doctrine owes its existence to Article
VI of the U.S. Constitution, which makes the Constitution,
and federal law enacted pursuant to it, the “supreme Law of
the Land.” U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. In short, the Supremacy
Clause precludes courts from “giv[ing] effect to state laws
that conflict with federal laws.” Nationwide Freight Sys., Inc. v.
Illinois Com. Comm’n, 784 F.3d 367, 372 (7th Cir. 2015) (altera-
tion in original) (quoting Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Ctr.,
Inc., 575 U.S. 320, 324 (2015)).
Today’s law recognizes three types of federal preemption:
express preemption, field preemption, and conflict preemp-
tion. See, e.g., Wigod v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 673 F.3d 547, 576
(7th Cir. 2012). Given that the Federal Aviation Administra-
tion Authorization Act “states explicitly what states may and
may not do with respect to” motor carriers and brokers, this
case concerns express preemption. Nationwide Freight, 784
F.3d at 373. Our task is one of statutory construction—to de-
termine whether Ye’s state law claim falls within the Act’s ex-
press prohibition in § 14501(c)(1) and, if so, whether any of
the Act’s exceptions save her claim from preemption.
We take a fresh look at Ye’s complaint to determine
whether the district court correctly dismissed her negligent
hiring claim against GlobalTranz. See Costello v. BeavEx, Inc.,
810 F.3d 1045, 1050 (7th Cir. 2016). In doing so, we owe no
deference to the district court’s legal determination that the
Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act preempts
her claim.
No. 22-1805 5
A
In 1994 Congress enacted the Federal Aviation Admin-
istration Authorization Act (which the parties call “F Quad
A,” but which we refer to as the Act) as part of a greater push
to deregulate interstate transportation industries. The initial
effort began in 1978 with a focus on deregulating domestic air
travel. See Dan’s City Used Cars, Inc. v. Pelkey, 569 U.S. 251,
255–56 (2013). With the passage of the Act in 1994, Congress
turned its attention to the trucking industry “upon finding
that state governance of intrastate transportation of property
had become ‘unreasonably burden[some]’ to ‘free trade, in-
terstate commerce, and American consumers.’” Id. at 256 (al-
teration in original) (quoting City of Columbus v. Ours Garage
& Wrecker Service, Inc., 536 U.S. 424, 440 (2002)). The Act in-
cludes several provisions barring such burdensome state reg-
ulations. See, e.g., 49 U.S.C. § 14501(a)(1), (b)(1), (c)(1).
Ye’s appeal requires a close look at the Act’s express
preemption provision and exceptions in 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c),
which governs “Motor Carriers of Property.” By its terms,
§ 14501(c) provides that a state
may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or
other provision having the force and effect of
law related to a price, route, or service of any
motor carrier ... or any motor private carrier,
broker, or freight forwarder with respect to the
transportation of property.
49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1). Several exceptions then follow. See id.§ 14501(c)(2), (3), (5).
6 No. 22-1805
We will come to focus on the so-called safety exception in
§ 14501(c)(2)(A). Under this exception, the express preemp-
tion provision in § 14501(c)(1)
shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority
of a State with respect to motor vehicles, the au-
thority of a State to impose highway route con-
trols or limitations based on the size or weight
of the motor vehicle or the hazardous nature of
the cargo, or the authority of a State to regulate
motor carriers with regard to minimum
amounts of financial responsibility relating to
insurance requirements and self-insurance au-
thorization.
Id. § 14501(c)(2)(A).
Notice, then, the overarching statutory structure: Con-
gress broadly disallowed state laws that impede its deregula-
tory goals, but it made a specific carveout for laws within a
state’s “safety regulatory authority … with respect to motor
vehicles,” even though such laws may burden interstate com-
merce. See Ours Garage, 536 U.S. at 441 (observing that “a State
could, without affront to the statute, pass discrete, nonuni-
form safety regulations” because the Act’s preemption provi-
sion in § 14501(c)(1) and its safety exception in
§ 14501(c)(2)(A) achieve different goals).
B
Interpreting these statutory provisions, the district court
first concluded that Ye’s negligent hiring claim against Glob-
alTranz falls within § 14501(c)(1)’s express prohibition on the
enforcement of state laws “related to a ... service of any ...
No. 22-1805 7
broker ... with respect to the transportation of property.” 49
U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1). We agree.
As always, we begin with the Act’s text, “which neces-
sarily contains the best evidence of Congress’ pre-emptive in-
tent.” Dan’s City Used Cars, 569 U.S. at 260 (quoting CSX
Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, 507 U.S. 658, 664 (1993)). In the
preemption context, the Supreme Court understands “related
to” or “relating to” as having a “broad preemptive purpose.”
See Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 383
(1992) (interpreting an identical provision of the Airline De-
regulation Act); see also Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transp.
Ass’n, 552 U.S. 364, 370–71 (2008) (explaining that interpreta-
tions of the Airline Deregulation Act directly apply to the Fed-
eral Aviation Administration Authorization Act). To be “re-
lated to” broker services, the state law in question need only
have a “connection with, or reference to” these services. Rowe,
552 U.S. at 370 (emphasis removed) (quoting Morales, 504 U.S.
at 384). A state law may be preempted even if the law’s effect
on broker services “is only indirect.” Id. (quoting Morales, 504
U.S. at 386). But state laws with indirect effects still require a
clear, articulable connection. The Act does not preempt state
laws that impact broker services in only a “tenuous, remote,
or peripheral” manner. Id. at 371 (quoting Morales, 504 U.S. at
390).
Our court has implemented the Supreme Court’s instruc-
tions in Morales and Rowe with a two-part test. As the party
seeking to establish preemption, GlobalTranz must show
both that a state “enacted or attempted to enforce a law” and
that the state law relates to broker “rates, routes, or services
‘either by expressly referring to them, or by having a signifi-
cant economic effect on them.’” Nationwide Freight, 784 F.3d at
8 No. 22-1805
373–74 (quoting Travel All Over the World, Inc. v. Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia, 73 F.3d 1423, 1432 (7th Cir. 1996)).
Ye brought her negligent hiring claim against GlobalTranz
under Illinois’s common law of negligence. Common law tort
claims “fall comfortably within the language of the [ ] pre-
emption provision” that, by its terms, “applies to state ‘law[s],
regulation[s], or other provision[s] having the force and effect
of law.’” Northwest, Inc. v. Ginsberg, 572 U.S. 273, 281–82 (2014)
(alterations in original) (citation omitted). So the first preemp-
tion requirement is easily met.
The question then becomes whether the Illinois law un-
derlying Ye’s claim expressly refers to or has a significant eco-
nomic effect on broker services. See Nationwide Freight, 784
F.3d at 373–74. Nothing in Illinois tort law expressly refers to
broker services. Rather, Ye roots her claim in a theory of neg-
ligent hiring more generally. Our focus must therefore be on
whether Ye’s proposed enforcement of Illinois’s common law
of negligence would have a significant economic effect on bro-
ker services.
Like the district court, we conclude the answer is yes. Ye
alleges GlobalTranz “was negligent in selecting Global Sun-
rise Inc. to transport freight on its behalf.” As a broker, Glob-
alTranz offers services in the form of “selling, providing, or
arranging for, transportation by motor carrier for compensa-
tion.” 49 U.S.C. § 13102(2) (defining “broker”). By its terms,
Ye’s claim strikes at the core of GlobalTranz’s broker services
by challenging the adequacy of care the company took—or
failed to take—in hiring Global Sunrise to provide shipping
services.
No. 22-1805 9
In our view, enforcement of such a claim—and the accom-
panying imposition of liability—would have a significant eco-
nomic effect on broker services. By recognizing common-law
negligence claims, courts would impose in the name of state
law a new and clear duty of care on brokers, the breach of
which would result in a monetary judgment. This is exactly
what Ye seeks here against GlobalTranz. To avoid these costly
damages payouts, GlobalTranz and other brokers would
change how they conduct their services—for instance, by in-
curring new costs to evaluate motor carriers. Then, by chang-
ing their hiring processes, brokers would likely hire different
motor carriers than they would have otherwise hired without
the state negligence standards. Indeed, that is the centerpiece
of Ye’s claim: that GlobalTranz should not have hired Global
Sunrise.
In our view, then, Ye’s negligent hiring claim has much
more than a tenuous, remote, or peripheral relationship to
broker services. The relationship is direct, and subjecting a
broker’s hiring decisions to a common-law negligence stand-
ard would have significant economic effects. So Ye’s claim is
expressly preempted by § 14501(c)(1).
Our conclusion is consistent with the two other circuit
courts that have considered this issue. See Miller v. C.H. Rob-
inson Worldwide, Inc., 976 F.3d 1016, 1024 (9th Cir. 2020) (“[A]
claim that imposes an obligation on brokers at the point at
which they arrange for transportation by motor carrier has a
‘connection with’ broker services.”); Aspen Am. Ins. Co. v.
Landstar Ranger, Inc., 65 F.4th 1261, 1267 (11th Cir. 2023)
(“[T]he [Act] makes plain that [the plaintiff’s] negligence
claims relate to a broker’s services.”).
10 No. 22-1805
Ye’s arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive. She con-
tends that the effects of enforcing negligent hiring claims
against brokers are too tenuous to be “related to” broker ser-
vices because negligent hiring laws regulate a broker’s
broader duty to the public, not its narrower relationships with
its customers. Ye insists this public–private distinction is im-
portant because she believes that Congress intended to
preempt state laws regulating only a broker’s market relation-
ships, not a broker’s relationship with the public. And she
sees GlobalTranz as having breached a duty of care owed to a
member of the public—her husband who was killed by a
Global Sunrise employee—and not a duty owed to its freight
customer.
We find no support in § 14501(c)(1)’s express preemption
provision for Ye’s position. The purpose of Illinois tort law—
whether aimed at a broker’s duty to the public or to private
actors—has no bearing on the significant economic effects that
will result by imposing state negligence standards on brokers.
And these significant effects are what matter in determining
that § 14501(c)(1) expressly preempts Ye’s Illinois tort claim
rooted in a theory of negligent hiring. See Nationwide Freight,
784 F.3d at 373–76.
C
That brings us to the Act’s safety exception. Even if Ye’s
claim is expressly preempted, it may be saved by one of sev-
eral provisions excluding claims from § 14501(c)(1)’s broad
reach. Ye points us to the safety exception in § 14501(c)(2)(A),
which provides that laws within a state’s “safety regulatory
authority ... with respect to motor vehicles” are not
preempted. Here, too, we agree with the district court that the
No. 22-1805 11
Act’s safety exception does not save Ye’s claim from preemp-
tion.
To start, Ye asks us to examine the first half of the safety
exception’s text and conclude that a state’s tort law is part of
its “safety regulatory authority.” There is much to say in sup-
port of this argument, and many courts agree with Ye’s line of
reasoning. See, e.g., Miller, 976 F.3d at 1026–29; Aspen, 65 F.4th
at 1268–70. But we do not need to reach this issue because we
conclude that Ye’s claim fails to satisfy the second half of the
safety exception’s text. In short, a common law negligence
claim enforced against a broker is not a law that is “with re-
spect to motor vehicles.”
1
The Supreme Court has broadly interpreted “with respect
to” to mean “concern[s].” See Dan’s City Used Cars, 569 U.S. at
261. But more crucial to our analysis is Congress’s specifica-
tion limiting the excepted laws to those that concern “motor
vehicles.” Our focus, then, is on the entire phrase “with re-
spect to motor vehicles”—language the Supreme Court has
determined “massively limits the scope” of the safety excep-
tion. Id. (quoting Ours Garage, 536 U.S. at 449 (Scalia, J., dis-
senting)). We must decide whether Ye’s negligent hiring claim
is one “with respect to motor vehicles.” We conclude it is not
because, in our view, the exception requires a direct link be-
tween a state’s law and motor vehicle safety. And we see no
such direct link between negligent hiring claims against bro-
kers and motor vehicle safety.
Once again we start with the statutory text. We first recog-
nize Congress’s express use in § 14501(c)(2)(A) of a statutorily
defined term—“motor vehicles.” By limiting the safety
12 No. 22-1805
exception to apply to state laws “with respect to motor vehi-
cles,” Congress narrowed the scope of the exception to those
laws concerning a “vehicle, machine, tractor, trailer, or semi-
trailer … used on a highway in transportation.” 49 U.S.C.
§ 13102(16) (defining “motor vehicle”). We see no mention of
brokers in the safety exception itself or in Congress’s defini-
tion of motor vehicles, which suggests that such claims may
be outside the scope of the exception’s plain text. See Dan’s
City Used Cars, 569 U.S. at 261–62 (concluding that a state’s
law was not “with respect to transportation of property” un-
der § 14501(c)(1) where it concerned post-towing storage,
which does not constitute “transportation” as defined in
§ 13102(23)(B)).
Looking beyond the clause containing the safety excep-
tion, § 14501(c)(2)(A) goes on to preserve a state’s authority
“to impose highway route controls or limitations based on the
size or weight of a motor vehicle or the hazardous nature of
the cargo” and to regulate motor carriers’ “insurance require-
ments.” Notice the specificity throughout § 14501(c)(2)(A): af-
ter broadly preempting state laws related to the prices, routes,
and services of brokers and motor carriers in § 14501(c)(1),
Congress carefully excepted state laws for motor vehicle
safety, cargo loads, and motor carrier insurance.
Now notice what is missing from § 14501(c)(2)(A)—any
reference to brokers or broker services. While it listed broker
services in § 14501(c)(1)’s express preemption provision, Con-
gress declined to expressly mention brokers again in refer-
ence to states’ safety authority. Reading further, we see the
same omission of brokers from § 14501(c)(2)’s other savings
provisions for “intrastate transportation of household goods”
and “tow truck operations.” Id. § 14501(c)(2)(B), (C).
No. 22-1805 13
Remember, too, that § 14501(c) sets forth federal authority
over “Motor Carriers of Property”—not brokers—so Con-
gress’s inclusion of brokers in one subsection and exclusion in
another suggests that the omission was intentional. See Rot-
kiske v. Klemm, 140 S. Ct. 355, 361 (2019) (“Atextual judicial
supplementation is particularly inappropriate when, as here,
Congress has shown that it knows how to adopt the omitted
language or provision.”). Congress could have chosen to save
state safety laws enforced “with respect to motor carriers and
brokers,” but it did not. We hesitate to read broker services
into parts of the statute where Congress declined to expressly
name them, especially when it contemplated them elsewhere
within the same statutory scheme. See id. at 360–61 (“It is a
fundamental principle of statutory interpretation that ‘absent
provision[s] cannot be supplied by the courts.’” (alteration in
original) (quoting Antonin Scalia & Bryan Garner, Reading
Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 94 (2012))).
Congress’s omission of brokers from the exceptions to
§ 14501(c)(1)’s preemptive sweep is even more pronounced
when we take a step back and examine other provisions
within § 14501. What most stands out is § 14501(b), titled
“Freight Forwarders and Brokers.” In § 14501(b)(1) Congress
directly addressed state regulation of brokers by prohibiting
states from enacting or enforcing laws “relating to intrastate
rates, intrastate routes, or intrastate services of any freight for-
warder or broker.” Following this broad preemption provi-
sion, however, Congress did not include a safety exception—
another telling omission given that Congress included safety
exceptions to the parallel preemption provisions for motor
carriers of property (at issue here) and motor carriers of pas-
sengers. See id. § 14501(a)(2), (c)(2)(A). Here, too, Congress’s
decision not to write a safety exception for the broker-specific
14 No. 22-1805
preemption provision indicates a purposeful separation be-
tween brokers and motor vehicle safety.
That brings us back to Ye’s claim. Absent unusual circum-
stances, the relationship between brokers and motor vehicle
safety will be indirect, at most. No better example than Ye’s
complaint. She alleged that GlobalTranz was “negligent in se-
lecting Global Sunrise” as the motor carrier and that Global
Sunrise was the one “negligent in its entrustment of a tractor-
trailer” to an unsafe driver. Ye’s allegations mirror practical
realities: GlobalTranz does not own or operate motor vehicles
like Global Sunrise does. Seeing the connection between Glob-
alTranz as a broker and motor vehicle safety requires an extra
link to connect the alleged chain of events: GlobalTranz’s neg-
ligent hiring of Global Sunrise resulted in Global Sunrise’s
negligent entrustment of a motor vehicle to a negligent driver
who, in turn, caused a collision that resulted in Shawn Lin’s
death.
In our view, this additional link goes a bridge too far to
bring Ye’s negligent hiring claim against GlobalTranz within
the Act’s safety exception in § 14501(c)(2)(A). The Act’s text
makes clear that Congress views motor vehicle safety regula-
tions separately and apart from those provisions imposing
obligations on brokers. And this separateness counsels a read-
ing of “with respect to motor vehicles” that requires a direct
connection between the potentially exempted state law and
motor vehicles. Any other construction would expand the
safety exception’s scope without a clear, text-based limit. So
we agree with the district court that the connection here—be-
tween a broker hiring standard and motor vehicles—is too at-
tenuated to be saved under § 14501(c)(2)(A).
No. 22-1805 15
To be sure, Ye is right to observe that, at a higher level of
generality, motor vehicles have some relationship to brokers
and, in turn, to considerations of motor vehicle safety. But we
do not see how Congress authorized such a broad reading of
the safety exception, and Ye offers no limiting principle of her
own. It is difficult to conclude that the same Congress that
prescribed specific—often itemized—regulations for motor
vehicle safety intended something broader than “motor vehi-
cle” in a safety exception that immediately follows an express
preemption provision regulating “motor carriers.” So we
draw the line where Congress did—at state safety regulations
directly related to “motor vehicles.”
2
Looking beyond § 14501 to the other provisions of Title 49
further reinforces our narrow reading of the phrase “with re-
spect to motor vehicles” in § 14501(c)(2)(A)’s safety exception.
See FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 132
(2000) (“[A] reviewing court should not confine itself to exam-
ining a particular statutory provision in isolation [because]
[t]he meaning … of certain words or phrases may only be-
come evident when placed in context.”); see also Sackett v.
EPA, 143 S. Ct. 1322, 1338 (2023) (considering the broader con-
text of the Clean Water Act to derive the meaning of “wet-
lands” in one provision of the Act (citing Brown & Williamson
Tobacco, 529 U.S. at 132)). We look to Title 49 for the limited
purpose of informing our understanding of “motor vehicles”
as Congress used the phrase in the Federal Aviation Admin-
istration Authorization Act and find that the broader statutory
context underscores our conclusion that only state laws with
a direct connection to motor vehicles are saved from the Act’s
express preemption provision.
16 No. 22-1805
Where Congress regulates motor vehicle safety in Title 49,
it addresses motor vehicle ownership, operation, and mainte-
nance—but not broker services. Take, for instance, Subtitle VI,
which covers “Motor Vehicle and Driver Programs.” Here
Congress defined “motor vehicle safety” to mean “the perfor-
mance of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment in a way
that protects the public against unreasonable risk of accidents
occurring because of the design, construction, or performance
of a motor vehicle.” 49 U.S.C. § 30102(9). Congress went on to
give the Secretary of Transportation authority to, among
other things, set “standards for inspection of commercial mo-
tor vehicles,” id. § 31142(b); “ensure that commercial motor
vehicles are maintained, equipped, loaded, and operated
safely,” id. § 31136(a)(1); and “issue and require the display of
an identification plate on a motor vehicle used in transporta-
tion,” id. § 31504(a)(1). These regulations, and many others,
concern the ownership and operation of the vehicles them-
selves—without reference to broker services.
The regulation of motor carriers throughout Title 49 fur-
ther illustrates the lack of evidence that Congress sees a direct
link between brokers and motor vehicles. For example, § 113
created the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and
empowered its Administrator to “carry out duties and powers
related to motor carriers or motor carrier safety.” Id.
§ 113(f)(1). The Administration has imposed standards for
commercial motor vehicle drivers’ licenses, see 49 C.F.R.
§ 383.1; operation of motor vehicles, see id. §§ 392.3–392.5; and
inspection of motor vehicle equipment, see id. § 392.7. The
regulations apply to motor carriers and their drivers, without
mention of brokers or other entities. See, e.g., id. § 392.4(b)
(“No motor carrier shall require or permit a driver to [drive
under the influence of drugs].”). Congress also created a
No. 22-1805 17
Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program to fund state efforts
to promote and enforce “effective motor carrier, commercial
motor vehicle, and driver safety regulations and practices
consistent with Federal requirements.” 49 U.S.C.
§ 31102(b)(3); see also id. § 31104. The Program, too, makes
specific mention of motor carriers with respect to motor vehi-
cle safety regulation, but not brokers. See 49 C.F.R.
§§ 350.101–350.417.
Indeed, we find no evidence in Title 49 that Congress sees
a direct relationship between broker services and motor vehi-
cles. Its regulation of brokers instead seems to address the fi-
nancial aspects of broker services, not safety. For instance,
brokers must file a “surety bond, proof of trust fund, or other
financial security” with the Secretary of Transportation to se-
cure against any “claim against a broker arising from its fail-
ure to pay freight charges under its contracts, agreements, or
arrangements for transportation.” 49 U.S.C. § 13906(b)(1)(A),
(2)(A). Compare that approach with Congress’s regulation of
the financial security of motor carriers in that same section.
Where brokers need only secure against a failure to perform
logistics services, motor carriers must obtain liability insur-
ance that covers “final judgment against the [motor carrier]
for bodily injury to, or death of, an individual resulting from
the negligent operation, maintenance, or use of motor vehi-
cles.” Id. § 13906(a)(1). Put differently, Congress required mo-
tor carriers—not brokers—to bear responsibility for motor ve-
hicle accidents.
We see, too, that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Admin-
istration—which is tasked with motor vehicle safety as its top
priority—requires brokers to maintain records of their trans-
actions, abide by certain advertising standards, and avoid
18 No. 22-1805
conflicts of interest with shippers. See 49 C.F.R. §§ 371.3,
371.7, 371.9. But nowhere do we see any indication that the
Administration imposes safety standards on broker hiring or
otherwise recognizes a relationship between brokers and mo-
tor vehicles.
A clear conclusion emerges from this broader review of
Title 49 and the regulatory landscape: Congress’s references
to motor vehicle safety do not impose obligations on brokers.
Accordingly, when it comes to interpreting the Act’s safety
exception, only those laws with a direct link to motor vehicles
fall within a state’s “safety regulatory authority ... with re-
spect to motor vehicles.” Brokers are noticeably absent from
motor vehicle safety regulations throughout the statutory
scheme, just as they are absent from the ambit of the safety
exception in § 14501(c)(2)(A). Our initial text-based determi-
nation therefore remains the same: § 14501(c)(2)(A) requires
state laws to have a direct link to motor vehicles to be saved
from the preemption provision in § 14501(c)(1).
We thus conclude that Ye’s negligent hiring claim against
GlobalTranz does not fall within the scope of § 14501(c)(2)’s
safety exception. The claim is preempted and therefore
properly dismissed by the district court.
III
Our conclusion aligns squarely with the Eleventh Circuit’s
recent decision in Aspen American Insurance Co. v. Landstar
Ranger, Inc., 65 F.4th 1261 (11th Cir. 2023).
In Aspen, the Eleventh Circuit also considered a negligent
hiring claim against a freight broker. Tessco Technologies
hired the broker Landstar Ranger to transport cargo. While
rendering its services, Landstar mistakenly gave Tessco’s
No. 22-1805 19
cargo to an entity pretending to be a motor carrier, and the
fraudulent entity ran off with Tessco’s goods. Tessco was re-
imbursed by its insurance company, Aspen American Insur-
ance, who in turn brought a state tort claim against Landstar
for its negligent selection of the thieving motor carrier. Land-
star argued that the Act preempted Aspen’s negligent hiring
claim. See 65 F.4th at 1264–65.
The Eleventh Circuit first held, as we do here, that negli-
gent hiring claims against brokers are expressly preempted
by § 14501(c)(1) under the Supreme Court’s broad reading of
“related to.” See id. at 1268 (citing Morales, 504 U.S. at 386).
The Aspen court then went on to analyze the safety exception
in § 14501(c)(2)(A). The panel divided over whether to reach
the question of whether a state’s “safety regulatory authority”
includes state tort law, see id. at 1273 (Jordan, J., concurring)
(declining to reach this issue), but the full panel concluded
that negligent hiring claims against brokers are not “with re-
spect to motor vehicles” and therefore not saved by the Act’s
safety exception. See id. at 1270–72.
The court’s approach grounded itself in the language of
§ 14501(c). Using canons of construction to avoid redundancy
and surplusage, the court concluded that the “phrase ‘with
respect to motor vehicles’ limits the safety exception’s appli-
cation to state laws that have a direct relationship to motor ve-
hicles.” Id. at 1271 (emphasis in original). In cases of negligent
hiring claims against brokers—regardless of whether the in-
jury is lost property (as in Aspen) or bodily injury (as here)—
the court held that “a mere indirect connection between state
regulations and motor vehicles will not invoke the [Act]’s
safety exception.” Id. at 1272.
20 No. 22-1805
Our reasoning similarly roots itself in the language Con-
gress employed in § 14501(c)(1) and § 14501(c)(2)(A), and we
go one step further by taking a broader look at the surround-
ing regulatory scheme in the Act and within Title 49 more
generally. In the end, then, we join the Eleventh Circuit in
holding that § 14501(c)(2)(A) requires a direct link between
state laws and motor vehicle safety and that negligent hiring
claims against brokers fall short of having that direct link.
The only other circuit court to have considered the issue
presented is the Ninth Circuit. The dispute in Miller v. C.H.
Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 976 F.3d 1016 (9th Cir. 2020), arose
from near-identical facts to those here: Allen Miller sought to
recover damages from a freight broker that he alleged was
negligent in hiring an unsafe motor carrier whose driver
caused a highway accident leaving Miller a quadriplegic. See
id. at 1020. Consistent with our analysis, the court first held
that negligent hiring claims against brokers are expressly
preempted by § 14501(c)(1) under its view that “related to”
requires a broad construction. See id. at 1021–25.
From there, however, the court found Miller’s claim
against the broker to be saved by the Act’s safety exception in
§ 14501(c)(2)(A). The Ninth Circuit interpreted “with respect
to motor vehicles” broadly to support exemption of state laws
with an indirect link to motor vehicles, including negligent
hiring claims against brokers. See id. at 1030–31. We see three
major analytical differences that account for our opposing in-
terpretations of § 14501(c)(2)(A).
First, in our view, the Ninth Circuit unduly emphasized
Congress’s stated deregulatory purpose in passing the Act at
the expense of the insights that come from an analysis of the
broader statutory scheme. Consideration of congressional
No. 22-1805 21
purpose is wholly appropriate. But given the plain meaning
and import of the text, both in § 14501(c) itself and throughout
the rest of Title 49, we do not see how Congress’s deregula-
tory goals can overcome the clear statutory mandate that the
exception in § 14501(c)(2)(A) saves only those safety regula-
tions directly concerning motor vehicles. See id. at 1031 (Fer-
nandez, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“[A bro-
ker] and the services it provides have no direct connection to
motor vehicles or their drivers. … That attenuated connection
is simply too remote for the safety exception to encompass
[the] negligence claim.”).
A second difference is the Ninth Circuit’s reliance on a
presumption against preemption to resolve any ambiguity in
the breadth of the safety exception’s scope. See id. at 1021. In
a later Ninth Circuit case, however, the court acknowledged
that its reliance on the presumption against preemption—in
Miller v. C.H. Robinson specifically—stood in direct conflict
with the Supreme Court’s instruction to “focus on the plain
wording of the clause” instead of “invok[ing] any presump-
tion against pre-emption.” R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. County
of Los Angeles, 29 F.4th 542, 553 n.6 (9th Cir. 2022) (quoting
Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Tr., 579 U.S. 115, 125
(2016)). Consistent with Franklin, we focus on the text of
§ 14501(c)(2)(A), which is “the best evidence of Congress’ pre-
emptive intent,” 579 U.S. at 125 (quoting Chamber of Com. v.
Whiting, 563 U.S. 582, 594 (2011)), and come to a different out-
come than the Ninth Circuit. We cannot be sure how the
Ninth Circuit would interpret § 14501(c)(2)(A) absent such a
presumption against preemption.
Finally, we disagree with the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion
that the phrase “with respect to” in § 14501(c)(2)(A) is
22 No. 22-1805
“synonymous” with “relating to.” Miller, 976 F.3d at 1030 (cit-
ing Cal. Tow Truck Ass’n v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 807
F.3d 1008, 1021 (9th Cir. 2015)). We read the Supreme Court’s
decision in Dan’s City Used Cars to say that “with respect to”
more narrowly means “concerns.” See 569 U.S. at 261. Given
Congress’s choice in § 14501(c)(1) to use “relating to,” its use
of “with respect to” in § 14501(c)(2)(A) implies a different
scope. No doubt “with respect to” is broad, but we decline to
equate it to “relating to.” Our different view of this phrase of-
fers another reason why our construction of the safety excep-
tion is narrower than the Ninth Circuit’s.
* * *
In the end, the plain text and statutory scheme indicate
that 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1) bars Ye’s negligent hiring claim
against GlobalTranz and that the Act’s safety exception in
§ 14501(c)(2)(A) does not save it from preemption.
For these reasons, we AFFIRM.