For years, owner-operators have been screaming about Highway. FreightValidate. MyCarrierPackets. RMIS. "The brokers won't load me. The vetting is killing small carriers." The Supreme Court just made it ten times worse. Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II. 9-0. Brokers can now be sued in state court when their carrier kills somebody on the road. C.H. Robinson lost this morning. Every broker general counsel in America is reading that opinion right now and making one decision: Vet harder. Reject more. Document everything. Highway and FreightValidate weren't the problem. They were the warm-up act. What's coming: — More identity verification layers — Equipment photos on every load — Real-time CSA monitoring with auto-disqualification — Driver-level vetting, not just MC-level — Insurance minimums that price out single-truck operators — Safety questionnaires that look like SF-86 background checks — Onboarding timelines that stretch from days to weeks Brokers aren't doing this to hurt you. They're doing it because a jury in Illinois is about to decide whether their $75K surety bond was an appropriate response to a dead motorist. Wrong answer = nine-figure verdict. You wanted accountability for brokers. You got it. The bill is being mailed to every owner-operator in America in the form of a thirty-page carrier packet. Adapt or quit. There is no third option.