As defense counsel in the trucking industry have seen in recent years, broker liability is a burgeoning area in which plaintiff’s attorneys are beginning to explore as a means to reach the elusive “deep pockets” of many of our broker clients. Much of the lure of broker liability began with the $23.8 million judgment against a freight broker that was upheld by an Illinois appellate court in Sperl v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 946 N.E.2d 463 (Ill. App. Ct. 2011). At the most surface level of the issue, the court’s decision in Sperl rested primarily upon the significant ...
Although it might seem like a clear-cut argument—“my client cannot be bound to a contractual provision when it was not a party to the contract”—courts have routinely rejected it. In doing so, these courts have often ordered that a defendant is then bound to a forum selection clause found in a co-defendant’s agreement with the plaintiff. In order to reach this result, however, the court must conclude that the nonsignatory defendant is sufficiently “closely related” to the dispute in the underlying action, such that it was foreseeable that the nonsignatory defendant ...
