Friday, October 23, 2026
The news that moves freight
Ocean Oct 23, 2026 · 7 min read

TQL moves to dismiss the carriers’ RICO suit

TQL’s strongest move against the RICO suit is a clause pointing to Ohio. On Monday 19 October, TQL filed three motions to dismiss a racketeering suit that carriers brought against it and C.H. Robinson (FreightWaves). One argues the carriers’ contracts send any dispute “exclusively in the state court located in Clermont County, Ohio.” We think that clause is the real threat to the case, more than the merits. The US Supreme Court said in 2013 that such clauses should win “in all but the most exceptional cases” (Business Law Today). Forwarders that broker US trucking should check their carrier contracts now. Our call: no ruling on TQL’s motions before 31 March 2027.

An Ohio contract clause, not the racketeering theory, may decide the carriers’ case against TQL

Total Quality Logistics filed three motions to dismiss on Monday 19 October in the racketeering suit that trucking companies brought against it and C.H. Robinson, FreightWaves reported on 21 October. It is the first response from either defendant. One of the three does not argue the facts at all. It says the case is in the wrong court.

Six carriers filed the suit on 23 September in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, according to the court docket on Justia and The Loadstar. They are Stevens Trucking, Western Flyer Express, Freymiller, IWX Motor Freight, Christenson Transportation and EOS. They sued under RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. It is a federal law written for organised crime. Civil plaintiffs like it because it allows treble damages, meaning three times the proven loss.

Our view is simple. The headline fight is whether the two largest US truck brokers committed racketeering. The fight more likely to decide what happens next is over a clause in TQL’s carrier contracts. If that clause holds, TQL leaves a Texas federal court for a state court in Clermont County, Ohio, near its Cincinnati base.

What TQL filed

FreightWaves describes three motions.

The first goes to the merits. TQL argues that what the carriers describe is not racketeering. It calls the case “a dispute about Plaintiffs losing freight to a lower bidder, the likely result of their poor business practices.” It adds: “Low rates, carrier noncompliance and a declining freight market do not establish that TQL committed racketeering.” On the carriers’ claim that brokers handled falsified records, TQL says “receipt of a falsified record does not establish TQL’s knowing participation in its falsification.”

TQL also attacks the link between any wrongdoing and any lost business. The carriers name lost shipper accounts, including Johnson Controls, Kroger and Kraft Heinz, FreightWaves reports. TQL’s lawyers say “those aggregate losses do not identify which injury was caused by the asserted TQL statutory violation.” TQL also argues that many of the lost accounts were tied to C.H. Robinson, not to TQL. And it points out that “at least half of the plaintiffs are licensed as freight brokers with the FMCSA,” the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which licenses carriers and brokers.

The second motion is the forum argument. FreightWaves quotes the carriers’ contracts as requiring them “to litigate any dispute with TQL exclusively in the state court located in Clermont County, Ohio.” Clermont County is a suburb of Cincinnati, where TQL is based. TQL adds: “The agreements expressly choose Ohio law.” It asks the court to enforce those agreements “before adjudication of the merits,” meaning before the judge weighs the racketeering claims at all.

The third motion asks the court to drop IWX Motor Freight. TQL says IWX is not based in Texas and “had no direct contract with TQL and conducted no business with TQL.”

The Loadstar’s legal columnist, Adam Clermont, wrote on 22 October that the defence arguments are familiar ones, but the Ohio forum-selection clause is not. That matches our reading.

Why the Ohio clause is the dangerous one

A forum-selection clause is a contract term that says where disputes must be heard. Courts take them seriously. In December 2013, in a case called Atlantic Marine, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously, in an opinion by Justice Alito, that the agreed forum should win “in all but the most exceptional cases,” according to an analysis in the American Bar Association’s Business Law Today. The same analysis notes that the court may not give weight to “the plaintiff’s choice of forum,” because the plaintiff already agreed to a different one.

There is a twist here. TQL’s clause names a state court, not another federal court. A federal judge cannot simply transfer a case into a state court. Business Law Today’s summary of Atlantic Marine says “a clause selecting a state forum may be enforced under the forum non conveniens doctrine.” That is a rule letting a court dismiss a case that belongs somewhere else. So if the clause holds, the likely result for the TQL claims is dismissal in Texas, not transfer.

That matters for the carriers. They chose the Eastern District of Texas and asked for a jury, the docket shows. A case heard in an Ohio state court near TQL’s base, under Ohio law, is a very different case. The racketeering arguments TQL makes in its first motion may never need to be decided in Texas.

We are not saying the clause is certain to win. The carriers will argue the clause does not cover these claims, or that one of the narrow Atlantic Marine exceptions applies. But the 2013 test leans heavily toward enforcing such clauses.

What the carriers allege

The suit’s core claim is that the brokers won freight by using cheap, non-compliant carriers. The complaint says the defendants “engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity predicated on forced labor and wire fraud,” FreightWaves reported on 26 September. It cites the Super Ego trucking network as an example of the capacity involved. Super Ego is not a defendant. The complaint also describes so-called chameleon carriers: firms with poor safety records that shut down and reopen under new names and DOT numbers.

The plaintiffs put numbers on their losses. Freymiller says it has identified $51.2m in lost sales across 63 customers, The Loadstar reported on 28 September. Christenson’s revenue fell from $71.3m in 2023 to $49.8m in 2025, per the same report. The carriers have not set a total claim. They are asking for damages to be fixed at trial, including treble damages.

The Loadstar also noted a weakness. The complaint includes a screenshot that appears to offer a driver $100 to avoid weigh stations, but the plaintiffs attribute it to the driver’s carrier, not to the brokers. That is the same gap TQL’s motion aims at: showing that a broker directed or knew about the wrongdoing, not just that it happened somewhere in the chain.

Where C.H. Robinson stands

C.H. Robinson had not filed a response when FreightWaves reported TQL’s motions. In September, its chief legal officer, Dorothy Capers, said: “We reject the allegations in this civil lawsuit.” She also said the company would defend the case vigorously and pursue counterclaims, The Loadstar reported. The company also told FreightWaves: “No freight broker sets rates. The marketplace does.”

This suit lands on a company already dealing with a separate, much bigger court loss. On 16 October, a Dallas County judge upheld in full a $604,025,000 jury verdict against C.H. Robinson over a fatal truck crash, in Lipe vs. Lupus Superior, FreightWaves reported. A TD Cowen analyst estimated about $107m in pre-judgment interest on top, taking the total above $700m. C.H. Robinson said it “did not cause or contribute to the accident.” That case is about broker liability for crashes. The RICO case is about how brokers win freight. Both put the same question in front of courts: what is a broker responsible for once it hands a load to a carrier?

What it means for forwarders

Many forwarders also broker US domestic trucking, either directly or through a brokerage arm. Three practical points follow.

First, read your own carrier agreements. TQL’s motion shows what a well-drafted forum and governing-law clause can do. If your contracts are silent, or name a court that suits the carrier better, you have less control over where a dispute ends up. Fix this before a dispute starts, not after.

Second, keep your carrier-vetting records clean and complete. TQL’s defence leans on the point that a broker using a carrier licensed and approved by the Department of Transportation is not committing fraud. Proof that you checked authority, insurance and safety records, and watched for chameleon carriers, is the record you will want if a competitor or a crash victim sues.

Third, expect shippers to ask questions. Johnson Controls, Kroger and Kraft Heinz are named as lost accounts, not as defendants. But large shippers do not like seeing their freight in a racketeering complaint. We expect more shipper audits of which carriers actually move their loads, and more requests for that information in bids.

On rates, we do not expect this case to move spot or contract truck prices. The market sets those. What it can change is paperwork, contract terms and the cost of compliance for brokers.

Our call

No hearing dates have been reported. Motions like these usually go through a response from the plaintiffs, a reply, and then a ruling, which takes months.

Our prediction: the Eastern District of Texas will not rule on TQL’s motions before 31 March 2027. C.H. Robinson will file its own motion to dismiss, rather than an answer to the complaint, by 30 November 2026. And if any of TQL’s three arguments takes it out of the Texas case, it will be the Ohio forum clause, not the claim that its conduct falls outside racketeering law.

Sources