FMCSA Compliance Is Not a Shield—But Noncompliance Is a Weapon
Motor carriers often ask whether FMCSA compliance protects them in litigation. The short answer is straightforward: compliance helps, but noncompliance hurts far more.
In trucking cases, plaintiffs’ attorneys rarely focus solely on the accident itself. Instead, they often look for ways to reframe the case around alleged “systemic safety failures.” Hours-of-service violations, incomplete driver qualification files, or maintenance gaps—even minor or technical ones—are routinely used to shift attention away from the facts of the crash and toward broader accusations of negligence or reckless disregard.
That does not mean perfection is required. Jurors understand that trucking operations are complex. What matters is whether a carrier can demonstrate reasonable safety systems, consistent enforcement, and good-faith compliance efforts over time.
From a defense perspective, the most dangerous cases are not those involving unavoidable accidents. They are the cases where documentation is missing, outdated, or inconsistent. When that happens, the litigation focus often moves away from physics, roadway conditions, or driver behavior and becomes a battle over paperwork, policies, and internal practices.
Proactive audits, clear written policies, and disciplined recordkeeping do more than satisfy regulators. They materially improve defensibility when litigation arises by limiting the ability of opposing counsel to reframe an accident as a broader failure of safety culture.
Compliance matters—but defensibility matters more.
When documentation gaps or technical violations become the focus of a lawsuit, early assessment can help limit unnecessary exposure before positions harden.
By Andrew R. Wilkinson, Partner.
