In May 2026, the Supreme Court handed down two transportation decisions just two weeks apart, and they share almost the same alphabet soup — FAAAA and FAA. They are not the same case, the same statute, or the same issue, and conflating them is an easy way to draw the wrong conclusion about your business. One reshaped freight-broker liability; the other reshaped which workers can be forced into arbitration. Here's a clean, plain-English guide to telling them apart and knowing which one applies to you.

The quick distinction

If you remember nothing else, remember this: FAAAA is about broker liability; FAA is about arbitration. Different acronyms, different statutes, different stakes — they just happened to land in the same news cycle.

• *FAAAA — Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC (decided May 14, 2026):* Freight brokers can be sued for negligent carrier selection in all 50 states.
• *FAA — Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock (decided May 28, 2026):* Certain local delivery drivers can't be forced into arbitration, even if they never cross a state line.

Same month, opposite corners of transportation law. Now the detail.

FAAAA: the broker-liability case

The FAAAA is the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 — the law that deregulated trucking economics and bars states from regulating a broker's or carrier's "price, route, or service." For years, brokers used it to get negligent-selection lawsuits dismissed on preemption grounds.

In Montgomery, a unanimous court held that those claims fall within the FAAAA's safety exception (49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(2)(A)) and can proceed. Writing for the court, Justice Barrett reasoned that requiring a broker to use ordinary care in choosing a carrier "concerns" motor vehicles — the trucks that haul the freight. The practical effect: the preemption shield is gone, and a broker's defense is now its documented carrier-vetting record. We cover the operational fallout in depth in our Montgomery ruling breakdown and the Carrier Vetting Checklist 2.0.

FAA: the arbitration case

The FAA is the Federal Arbitration Act — a different statute entirely, governing when disputes must go to arbitration instead of court. Its Section 1 exempts "transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce" from forced arbitration.

In Flowers Foods v. Brock, decided two weeks later, the court held that a local delivery driver who hauled goods that originated out of state was an exempt transportation worker — even though his own routes stayed inside one state — because he formed the last leg of an interstate journey. The result: more last-mile and local drivers can take employment and labor disputes to court rather than arbitration. This is an employment-law and worker-classification story, not a carrier-safety one.

Why the two get confused

Beyond the near-identical initials, both cases:

• came from the same Supreme Court term, weeks apart;
• involve trucking and the movement of goods;
• expanded rights in ways that favor plaintiffs and workers over the companies' preferred defenses; and
• turn on the reach of a federal transportation statute.

But they govern different relationships. Montgomery is about a broker's duty to the public it might injure through an unsafe carrier. Flowers Foods is about a company's relationship with its workers and where their disputes get resolved. Mix them up and you might wrongly think the broker case affects your arbitration clauses, or that the arbitration case changes your carrier vetting. It doesn't.

Which ruling affects you?

• If you arrange freight (brokers, 3PLs): Montgomery (FAAAA) is your ruling. Your action item is documented, consistent carrier vetting — see Document or Defend.
• If you employ drivers, especially last-mile/local: Flowers Foods (FAA) is your ruling. Your action item is reviewing arbitration agreements and worker classification with employment counsel.
• If you're a larger logistics operation: both may apply — but to different departments. Operations and risk own the FAAAA fallout; HR and legal own the FAA fallout.

A side-by-side cheat sheet

• Statute: FAAAA (deregulation + safety exception) vs. FAA (arbitration).
• Case: Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II vs. Flowers Foods v. Brock.
• Question: Can a broker be sued for carrier selection? vs. Can this worker be forced into arbitration?
• Who cares: Brokers, 3PLs, shippers, insurers vs. Employers of transportation workers, HR, labor counsel.
• Your move: Document carrier vetting vs. Review arbitration clauses.

The bottom line for freight operators

For brokers and 3PLs, the case that should change how you operate tomorrow is the FAAAA one. The arbitration ruling is worth knowing, but it won't keep your name out of a negligent-selection complaint — only disciplined, documented carrier vetting does that. Debales deploys AI agents that handle carrier communications and load tendering and capture each safety check and approval automatically as a timestamped trail, so the Montgomery standard is met on every load. The diligence you can prove is the diligence that protects you.

Know which ruling is yours, route it to the right team, and don't let two similar acronyms send you chasing the wrong risk.

See how Debales automates documented carrier vetting for the post-Montgomery world. Learn more at debales.ai.