Driven by a wave of United States Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) oversight initiatives, along with a recently altered liability landscape for freight brokers, motor carrier and driver safety has emerged as a transportation industry priority over the past eighteen months. The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Administrative Review Board’s (ARB) decision in Gutierrez v. R.B. Stewart Petroleum Products, Inc. this past spring provides useful guidance for companies with a driver workforce on how to balance federal safety requirements, internal safety protocols, and driver oversight.

The morning on February 16, 2022, a driver for R.B. Stewart Petroleum Products (RBS) hauling fuel pulled onto the shoulder of a dark, two-lane highway because he was too tired to keep going as required under federal regulation.¹ While he switched on his hazard flashers, he never set out the reflective triangles (as required by law and RBS),²  parked too close to the travel lane, and never called dispatch as required by company policy.

Five days later, the driver’s employment was terminated. Litigation ensued, with the driver alleging retaliation based on his protected activity (stopping due to fatigue) under the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA).³ The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) found that the driver’s protected activity was not a contributing factor in his termination and, upon further review, the ARB affirmed. The ARB separately affirmed the ALJ’s finding that RBS proved by clear and convincing evidence that it would have terminated the driver’s employment anyway due to his serious independent safety violations coupled with the Company’s established safety procedures and routine accommodation of fatigued drivers.

Driver Safety in Focus

The last eighteen months have produced the most aggressive driver-qualification and safety-focused enforcement posture in the DOT’s and FMCSA’s history. This significant policy shift coincidentally coincided with a landmark Supreme Court decision, Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II⁴, that exposed transportation brokers to new liability arising from the operation of the motor carriers with which they work. In this environment, carriers are facing increased pressure from both the current DOT/FMCSA administration and brokers to operate safely: from the former under threat of penalties and loss of operating authority; from the latter to minimize events that could create liability and win new business.

That means carriers, more than ever, must be vigilant ensuring that their drivers are correctly implementing federally required and company-specific safety protocols. The predictable consequence is more driver discipline.

But with each disciplinary action, including employee driver termination, carriers are exposed to a potential STAA complaint. Caught between greater oversight of driver conduct and participating in DOL Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hearings, carriers should review their existing standard operating procedures and implement new procedures to both ensure safe driving practices and limit STAA liability.

Understanding STAA Employee Protections

The STAA prohibits a carrier from discharging or disciplining an employee because the employee engaged in protected activity. The analysis runs in two steps, and neither favors employers.

Step one belongs to the complainant, and the bar is low. The complainant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) he or she engaged in protected activity, (2) that the carrier took an adverse action, and (3) that the protected activity was a contributing factor in that action.⁵  A contributing factor is any factor that, alone or with others, tends to affect the outcome of the decision in any way.⁶ It need not be significant, motivating, substantial, or predominant.⁷ The driver does not have to prove the carrier was lying about its stated reason for the activity, and the driver does not have to prove retaliatory motive at all.

Step two belongs to the carrier, and the bar is high. If the complainant carries step one, the carrier avoids liability only by proving by clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the same adverse action in the absence of the complainant’s protected activity and that the truth of this defense is highly probable.⁸

This structure replaced a Title VII-style framework in 2007, when Congress directed that STAA complaints be governed by a new burden of proof.⁹ Under the old approach the ultimate burden stayed with the complainant and the fight was about pretext. That is no longer the case, and carriers that still think of these as pretext cases are preparing for the wrong argument.

Three Reasons Gutierrez’s Claim Failed

While the ALJ found that the driver engaged in protected activity, both by ceasing to operate because of fatigue and by later reporting fatigue and illness, no STAA violation occurred for three reasons.

First, management did not know why he stopped. The driver never told dispatch or management the reason until the termination meeting five days later. Management had watched the video and could have inferred he was resting. That inference was not sufficient. Drivers took breaks throughout their shifts for all sorts of reasons, and company practice required a call when a break ran long. The ARB’s rule: a refusal is protected only if it supplies enough context to put the employer on notice that it rests on an actual or perceived safety or regulatory violation.¹⁰

Second, the manner of the stop was an intervening event. Assuming the carrier should have known the driver had stopped due to fatigue, the ARB held that the driver’s independent choices — the unlit high-speed shoulder, the proximity to traffic, the missing triangles, the hazardous cargo — severed the causal chain. The driver argued the termination was “inextricably intertwined” with the protected activity; the ARB rejected that argument, consistent with its position that a chain-of-events theory cannot substitute for contributing-factor causation.¹¹ The question was whether the protected activity itself influenced the decision-makers, and here management was moved not by the stop but by how he stopped.

Finally, the termination decision was already underway before the driver’s later protected activity. Carrier management recommended termination after reviewing the logs and video — before the driver reported fatigue, before he stopped during the following shift, and before he called in sick. After the driver’s reports of fatigue to management, the vice president approved and HR drafted the termination language, although management did not forward the information to the vice president because the decision was already made. For an act to cause an outcome, the act must occur first.

Notably, the ARB affirmed the ALJ’s decision emphasizing absence of any pretext signal: recognizing “no retaliatory animus, hostility to fatigue complaints, shifting explanations, inconsistent enforcement, or any other signs of pretext” combined with affirmative evidence that the carrier routinely accommodated fatigued drivers by arranging rest, dispatching relief, or hauling drivers back to the terminal.

Lessons Learned for Carriers: How to Manage Drivers under the STAA

There are seven lessons that carriers can take away from the Gutierrez decision:

A written fatigue policy that made stopping the easy part. Drivers were told they could stop, and told how to do it. A carrier that cannot show its drivers understood stopping was safe will not be able to prove the stop played no role in a termination.

A separate, specific procedure for how to stop. Warning-device placement, safe stopping location, and the dispatch call were concrete requirements, not general admonitions. Blended policies invite the argument that discipline for the manner is discipline for the decision.

A notification requirement, with proof of training. The dispatch call did double duty here. It served as both a safety measure and as the mechanism that would have put the carrier on notice.

A documented practice of accommodating fatigued drivers. Relief drivers dispatched, terminal pickups arranged, rest granted without discipline. This policy demonstrated that drivers’ fatigue were accommodated and readily supported.

Contemporaneous investigation records. Dated log reviews, preserved video, emails written at the time. The sequence was dispositive on the third ground and provable only because it was documented.

Contemporaneous documentation of the disciplinary process. The investigation records and emails corroborated management’s testimony that it had already recommended termination before learning that the earlier stop was fatigue-related and before the driver engaged in later protected activity.

Consistent enforcement across drivers. There was no evidence that other drivers committed the same violations without consequence.

Meeting the Demands of Today’s Transportation Industry

The forces pulling on carriers are not going away. DOT and FMCSA enforcement initiatives will continue to scrutinize driver training and operations; brokers, reacting to the Montgomery decision, will in turn scrutinize carrier safety. Both dynamics push carriers toward more driver oversight, and more driver oversight invites more STAA complaints. Carriers that treat heightened safety and STAA compliance as separate matters will struggle to successfully manage today’s industry expectations.

Gutierrez shows how carriers can address both at the same time. The same written fatigue policy, stop procedure, dispatch-notification requirement, and contemporaneous documentation that RBS used to meet its own safety standards were what let it prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the termination had nothing to do with the driver’s protected activity. Built and followed before an incident occurs, that record does double duty: it is the safety compliance DOT, FMCSA, and broker partners are demanding, and it is the carrier’s defense the day a driver challenges a disciplinary decision. Carriers should build or revisit their driver management strategy now.

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¹ 49 C.F.R. § 392.3.

² 49 C.F.R. § 392.22(b).

³ Gutierrez v. R.B. Stewart Petroleum Prods., Inc., ARB No. 2024-0013, ALJ No. 2022-STA-00043 (ARB May 22, 2026), available at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OALJ/PUBLIC/ARB/DECISIONS/ARB_DECISIONS/STA/2024-0013-STAP.pdf.

⁴ Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, 608 U.S. 219 (2026) (holding that FAAAA preemption does not insulate transportation brokers from liability).

⁵ 49 U.S.C. § 31105(b)(1) (adopting the burdens of proof set forth at 49 U.S.C. § 42121(b)); 49 U.S.C. § 42121(b)(2)(B)(iii); 29 C.F.R. § 1978.109(a).

⁶ See Marano v. Dep’t of Justice, 2 F.3d 1137, 1140 (Fed. Cir. 1993).

⁷Dick v. USAA, ARB No. 2022-0063, ALJ No. 2018-STA-00054, slip op. at 14 (ARB Apr. 16, 2024).

⁸ 49 U.S.C. § 42121(b)(2)(B)(iv); 29 C.F.R. § 1978.109(b); Simpson v. Equity Transp. Co., ARB No. 2019-0010, ALJ No. 2017-STA-00076, slip op. at 9 (ARB May 13, 2020) (clear and convincing evidence requires showing the truth of the employer’s factual contentions is highly probable).

⁹ Pub. L. No. 110-53, § 1536, 121 Stat. 266, 464 (2007) (amending 49 U.S.C. § 31105(b)(1)); 49 U.S.C. § 42121(b). See Beatty v. Inman Trucking Mgmt., Inc., ARB No. 13-039, ALJ Nos. 2008-STA-00020, -00021, slip op. at 8-11 (ARB May 13, 2014) (McDonnell Douglas framework supplanted by the 2007 amendments)

¹⁰ Sharpe v. Geiger Excavating, Inc., ARB No. 2024-0038, ALJ No. 2023-STA-00027, slip op. at 5–6 (ARB Apr. 29, 2026).
Klinger v. BNSF Ry. Co., ARB No. 2019-0013, ALJ No. 2016-FRS-00062, slip op. at 9 (ARB Mar. 18, 2021); Riddell v. CSX Transp., Inc., ARB No. 2019-0016, ALJ No. 2014-FRS-00054, slip op. at 21 n.13 (ARB May 19, 2020).

¹¹ Klinger v. BNSF Ry. Co., ARB No. 2019-0013, ALJ No. 2016-FRS-00062, slip op. at 9 (ARB Mar. 18, 2021); Riddell v. CSX Transp., Inc., ARB No. 2019-0016, ALJ No. 2014-FRS-00054, slip op. at 21 n.13 (ARB May 19, 2020).